


The Guilty

by labingi



Series: The Guilty [2]
Category: Death Note, Monster (Manga/Anime)
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-18
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labingi/pseuds/labingi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Johan wants to obliterate Light's utopia, can the task force play Johan and Light off each other... do they really want to?  (Rated "mature" for themes: it's a Monster story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Counter-Kira

L watched Light think. He watched him stew, watched that narrow stare gaze inward, as he leaned back in his chair, knees crossed and arms crossed. How bad he could be sometimes at pretending to be merely Yagami Light, upstanding police chief's son, with nothing to hide.

"Cake?" L held out a piece and enjoyed the brief blankness on Light's face before he clicked in.

"No, thanks." He approximated a polite smile.

"It might increase your cognitive capacity."

Light glared for a second, then slipped on the mask. "I don't think it will work like that for me, Ryuzaki. How about we pool our capacities instead?"

"That would be a good idea, wouldn't it? So what conclusions have your ruminations yielded?"

"I think I know who the murderer is."

L stuffed a bite of cake into his mouth. "That's the easy part, isn't it?"

* * *

 _Dear Kenzo,_

 _In this day and age, the best way to send a highly sensitive communication can sometimes be by plain old post: one copy, no record, just a letter to an old friend. Please burn it once you've read it._

 _I'm sure you've been following the Counter-Kira Murders. I won't beat around the bush: we suspect their mastermind to be Johan. Several reasons: geographic distribution, the profiles of the thugs employed, the means, the victims. There is something viscerally distressing, isn't there, in the singling out of the best and brightest associated with the criminals Kira kills? The prison guard with the reputation for fairness, the literacy instructor, the faithful wife. And I am very sorry about Gillen-sensei; I know he was your friend._

 _I am writing now to ask for your help in finding him. I know it's difficult, but I have to ask: have you seen him? When/where? Do you know who has? His sister? Anything. Please reply to this letter in kind: by ordinary post, not too abruptly but within 3-5 days of receipt if possible. My lasting thanks._

 _Your Friend,  
Q.W._

* * *

 _Dear Q,_

 _ ~~Naïve as it sounds, it never crossed my mind the Counter-Kira could be Johan. But the minute you said it, I knew it was true.~~ I always knew deep down it was Johan, but I blinded myself. I wanted to believe that he'd given up killing. Naïve, I know. Yes, I've seen him: five times in the past nine years. He's found me, twice in Germany (1999, 2002), once in France (2001), once in Chile (2004), once in Malaysia (2006). It's difficult to describe our meetings. He would just  appear, as he always did, and we'd talk--about me mostly. He would ask me questions about my life with Drs. w/o Borders, strange, leading, morbid questions. We didn't talk much about him. I'd ask him how he was; he wouldn't answer. I didn't press. I didn't want to know. You understand._

 _Nina has seen him more often. We don't talk about it much, but I think their meetings are much like his and mine. They talk about her; she doesn't press. I don't know if she's guessed. I'll write her._

 _Of course, I'll do all in my power to help you. If you want me to come assist in the investigation, just let me know and I'm there. And you must assume that J. knows this. Assume he knows you know everything that I tell you. Assume he knows everything -- period._

 _I'll write more when I can._

 _Your Friend,  
Kenzo_

* * *

L took the coffee Mr. Wammy held out as he rolled the dessert trolly around the conference table.

"I despise Johan as much as anyone," said Aizawa, ignoring the coffee. "But this isn't our case."

L counted half a second before Light made the inevitable reply: "But the two cases are no longer distinct. The Counter-Kira is closing on Kira. Month by month, his murders have followed Kira's murders more rapidly, and his victims have become more closely connected with either Kira's victims or their locations."

Yagami-san made an affirmation grunt; he was on his son's side in this. "And you believe, Light, that apprehending Johan will help us identify Kira."

Light leaned back in his chair. "Johan is pursuing Kira. He has operatives in numerous countries, but his murders have been increasingly concentrated in Japan. Everybody believes that Kira is based in the Kanto region, and Johan is advertising his network here. He's telling us he'll find Kira before we do."

"Wouldn't it be foolish for him to advertise his resources?" L asked because he enjoyed pinning Light into insulting Kira.

"He's an armchair exhibitionist."

"Like Kira?"

Light didn't blink. "Yes, Ryuzaki, exactly like Kira."

Aizawa humpfed. "It sounds like Light-kun is saying we just sit back and let Johan track Kira down for us."

Light--who, of course, meant nothing of the kind--said immediately, "That's exactly what we should do, Aizawa-san, except the 'sitting back' part. We can assume Johan knows less about Kira than we do. But he has resources we lack, and he's a criminal genius; if we track his actions, he might give us insights into Kira's identity or location. But to do that, we have to be able to track Johan. That makes it our business to find him." He put on his school-kid smile. "Besides, bringing in Johan could hardly be a bad thing, whether it's our primary objective or not."

This was where it got fun. L leapt in with the obvious. "But if we're tracking Johan to Kira, we can't bring him in."

Light hesitated a bare second. "That's a decision we can defer, right? For now, the closer we hone in on Johan, the closer we're likely to get to Kira, either because Johan is closing on Kira or Kira is increasingly concentrating on Johan." ( _Yes,_ thought L. _He is, isn't he?_ ) "If we physically pinpoint Johan, well, that's a bridge we can cross when we come to it."

Yagami-san studied his son. "Light, I'd like to think you're not suggesting we knowingly let a psychopath run loose."

"No, Dad, of course not," said Light, smiling, no doubt, at his success in manipulating the conversation so that Yagami Light could endorse the course of action in Kira's best interests. "Personally, I believe we should bring Johan in as soon as we find him. One lead on Kira isn't worth letting a serial killer run free."

L couldn't disagree with capturing Johan, but he refused to leave the irony unremarked: "Convenient for Kira, if his enemies dispatch his enemy."

"I don't think any of this is convenient for Kira," said Light, truthfully enough.

* * *

Kenzo felt oddly comforted at the sight of the old man. Strange that an Englishman he'd known for just nine years should become his anchor in his native country. He walked up to him quickly. "You didn't have to come to the airport."

"It's nothing. I chauffeur everyone," Quil smiled. "Do you have luggage?"

"Just my carryon." Kenzo hefted it over his shoulder. "It's good to see you."

Since he'd slept on the plane, he let Quil take him to dinner. He'd rather have met task force at once, but Quil said everyone had gone home for the evening. Besides, it was best to start fresh. And that could hardly be denied, thought Kenzo, invigorated by the smell of miso that pervaded the restaurant.

"How does it feel to be back?" Quil asked him over ramen.

"I've missed the food." He caught himself gulping it down.

Quil laughed. "Makes me think of _Slaughterhouse Five_ , the film, not the book. When someone asks him what he misses most about his dead wife, and he says, 'Her pancakes.'"

Kenzo smiled, chagrined. "I'll see my parents and brothers before I leave. I am looking forward to catching up with the younger brother." To get off the topic of his family, he plunged straight on, "I met with Roger-san before flying out as you suggested. He gave me quite a briefing."

"Well, we can talk about that later," said Quil, reminding him they were in a public place.

"Of course. I just wanted to say I enjoyed meeting the children." He hesitated, not wanting to seem officious, then decided it was most likely best to speak his mind. "Roger-san does a wonderful job with them, but I was a little worried about Nate."

Quil gave him a still, blank look. After a moment, he said mildly, "I'd have guessed you'd be more worried about Mello."

Quil's use of the code name brought home his error. _I should never use their real names._ Too late to change it now, however. "Mello, well, he needs watching, certainly. But he seems a pretty normal rebel to me. Nate... he's awfully disconnected, isn't he?"

Quil sighed. "It's how he is. There's only so much we can--we should--do to change them."

"Of course. I don't mean to pry."

"And I don't mean to sound dismissive." Quil weighed his noodles on his chopsticks. "I... I don't think I ever sufficiently thanked you for your sympathy about that whole... thing. The debacle."

Kenzo watched Quil look shyly into his bowl. He seemed to droop, even his mustache: older and more world weary.

Quil cleared his throat. "I went to see him shortly after he got transferred from the hospital to his prison cell. I, uh, got right up to looking through the glass--one way, you know. And I couldn't. I couldn't go in. I just... I couldn't." He set down his chopsticks and took a drink of water. "Dear Lord but I got what I asked for with him."

"You couldn't have known," said Kenzo.

"I could. And I should. His whole life, Kenzo, was one giant cry for help." He shook his head. "Now I can't even bear to talk to him."

"You will," said Kenzo with determination. "You should. And you can; next time, you'll see."

Quil smiled. "I'm glad you've come. And I'm afraid for you too: a word of warning for this world we're in. There's only one reason Kira would possibly want to kill you, and that's to command you, as part of your death, to tell him something he wants to know. So it's a good thing you don't know anything he could possibly want to know--and don't give him any reason to think you do." Quil gave him a long, piercing stare.

Kenzo nodded. _Never give the slightest hint I know the real name. There's nothing, there's no one but "Johan."_

* * *

"Tenma-sensei?"

Kenzo exhaled slowly before turning to the young man, a bright auburn in the morning sun that poured through the window. He feared Yagami Light--because of Quil's and L's suspicions, but it was more than that. He'd felt it the moment he met him, not three hours ago. Light was too sheer, like a sheet of plastic. He did everything without blemish, and his white brought the dark out in the blemishes of others. That was the crux of it, Kenzo realized; this boy, who was young enough to be his son: Kenzo feared him like his father.

He made himself smile. "This building is amazing, Light-kun." He glanced around the bedroom they'd offered him.

Light returned his smile. "Ryuzaki knows how to use his money all right."

Kenzo laughed, with genuine amusement. "I remember Watari telling me once that I couldn't afford L's services. Now, I see what he meant."

Light came into the room and folded his arms casually over a form-fitting brown sweater. "You wanted to hire him?"

Despite Light's conversational tone, Kenzo's heart clunked into his stomach. _I've barely even spoken to him, and I'm almost begging him to kill me. If he really is Kira. And if I let him guess I searched and found out Johan's name..._

"Yes, I did want to." Quick, an excuse. To find Johan? No, it would be easy for someone like Light to verify that L and Kenzo had met when Johan was still in the hospital. What, then, maybe...

"I don't mean to press you," said Light with a friendly grin. "It's none of my business."

"I wanted to find out where my friend, Grimmer, came from. He had traumatic amnesia, you know. He never knew." Kenzo felt his face go hot. He didn't like the idea of using Wolfgang as an easy lie.

"I've read up on it," said Light, sitting on the couch. "I've been doing a lot of reading about the people connected with Johan."

A quiet descended on Kenzo, like completing an exam that you knew you'd excelled on. _Yes, he may well be Kira._ Yet he couldn't say why he thought so. He took a seat opposite Light and let his eyes slip over that placid, piercing gaze. _That's it. A normal person, if he'd read up on Wolfgang, would have offered condolences for how he died. This one, he flies straight to Johan, the thorn in Kira's side._ "You want to know about my connections with Johan?"

"Certainly, Tenma-sensei. Your help will be invaluable, so I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain?"

"What do you want to know?"

"I wonder if you have any insight into Johan's real name."

Kenzo must have gaped in consternation because Light laughed and held up a hand. "Sorry--sorry. I'm sure Ryuzaki has told you he has suspicions about me, and I probably just confirmed them for you."

"No, of course not."

"Well. I'm not trying to find out Johan's real name; that's not, in itself, significant. But it's significant for Kira, right? So if we're going to use Johan to try to anticipate Kira's moves, we need all the information we can gather about how Kira might pursue Johan's identity. That's what I'm wondering: if you know anyone who knows or have any ideas about how one might find out." He leaned an arm on the back of the couch and propped his head on his hand as if lost in thought. "Or if _you_ know," he added, "which is an obvious guess for Kira to make. We mustn't, of course, give any sign that you know: keep him guessing, and his conscience will opt against killing you."

"I don't know Johan's name," said Kenzo. "And Nina doesn't; she's told me that. I can't think of anyone who does--" _That sounds like obfuscating._ "--except their mother probably."

"You met her, I think?"

 _How the hell does he know that? Or is he bluffing?_ If he was, Kenzo didn't dare call him on it. "Yes, almost ten years ago in France. We talked about her feelings about her children, but I never even knew her real name, and I don't think she lives there anymore."

"Don't _think_ so?"

"Well, the contacts who helped me find her disappeared; she stopped answering letters, that sort of thing." Kenzo yawned, more from nerves than sleepiness, real or feigned. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help." He stood. "I think I'll go check into my hotel now."

Light stood too. "You're not staying here?"

"It's a very kind offer, but Ryuzaki and I agree that keeping me in an ordinary hotel will make it easier for Johan to contact me." He gave a sheepish smile. "So the sooner I go, the sooner I may, in fact, be able to help you."

Light gazed at him a moment, then bowed a little. "You're a brave man, Tenma-sensei, to go out in search of him. You remind me of my father."

Something in Kenzo twinged. To be likened to Yagami Soichiro--and by his son, who by all accounts, was devoted to him: the honor coursed through him like nerve pain. But the greater pain was the memory of Johan: _He also said I was like a father._

They lay too close, these two immaculate young men. Too clean, too perfect, piercing the world like a needle through the brain.

* * *

Four hours later, Quil called Kenzo's hotel to let him know Nina had arrived. He hurried to headquarters, but they couldn't really talk, not in front of the task force.

Seeing her made him feel the _Unheil_ of their separation, the terrible wrongness. Life got busy and demanded attention, and before they knew it, five years had passed. The new hairstyle struck him first: she'd cut it short, not boyish but just below her ears, and it made her look like Johan--or, he should say, more like Johan. It discomforted him.

In Japan, his brain had quickly realigned itself to thinking in Japanese, but the word for this was German. Unhealth padded quiet as a cat among them. Wagner popped into his head:

 _Nicht bringst du Unheil dahin, wo Unheil im Hause wohnt._

As Sieglinde sang to her returning brother: the sickness is right here, at home. He didn't bring it; we're not his fault.

But her face was lovely: thinner, less girlish. She smiled at him, he smiled at her, and they exchanged some words of greeting. In German? Yes, German: it took him a moment realize. She called him, "Tenma": _And that's when I knew it was really her._ He scarcely heard a word of Yagami-san's introductions and briefing on her role, like his, as an expert consultant on Johan.

They couldn't really talk until she walked him to his hotel.

"They offered me a room at their HQ," she said as they strolled through the hot afternoon. "But if he wants to contact me, it's better for me to be where he can reach me. But I hope he doesn't try today. Oh, I have terrible jet lag. I'm going to check in and sleep."

"I felt the same way--about getting a hotel--and also, the less time we spend in that building, the less likely we'll lead him there."

She said nothing, and when he glanced at her, he saw her smiling at him. "You look good, Tenma."

"So do you."

Her smile widened for a second. "I expected to see you more haggard."

He smiled back. "Give it time. But you, you never look haggard. I don't know how you do it."

"Genes probably," she said stiffly and paused. "So you think he's really responsible for it?"

Kenzo glanced at her curiously. "You don't?"

She sighed. "I'd hoped.... It was silly."

He squeezed her shoulder briefly. "I'd hoped too." They walked in silence. It struck him suddenly as dangerous to speak, conspicuous, the two of them: the middle-aged man and the white girl. _But we're here to be conspicuous, to draw him in toward us._ "So what do you think of Japan so far?"

She laughed. "You mean the airport and the taxi service? It's very exotic. Oh, and the sidewalks...."

He smiled. "I wish I could show you around."

"I spoke to Dieter before I left. He said it was high time he visited Japan and that we should all vacation together when this is over. Somehow I imagine when this is over I won't feel like vacationing. But it's a pretty idea, isn't it?"

"It is. Bless Dieter for his ideas."

* * *

"Of course, Johan guesses that Light-kun is Kira." L closed the door, maneuvering around the Shinigami, who had followed them to L's room and now stood immobile as a museum mammoth.

" _What?_...." Light corrected his tone and finished mildly, "...makes you say that?" His consternation was almost comical.

"Light-kun can't work it out?" That was very disappointing. No. Not disappointing: rather, it made L weirdly sympathetic to see Light cracking under this two-front assault. How much of his energy was spent trying to pick victims where Johan didn't have a presence--and how much energy in finding ways to convey that reasoning to Misa? Even a mind as brilliant as Light's got fatigued under constant onslaught. "Johan knows Misa is suspected of being the Second Kira."

"How?"

It hadn't occurred to L that Light didn't take that for granted; it wasn't hard to deduce. "He has contacts in the police force; that's obvious given that--"

"--he's able to murder people under police protection. Yes," Light finished for him, clearly frustrated by his own dullness. "Therefore, his contacts would tell him about Misa. But only the task force knows you suspect me. Are you saying you suspect a mole?"

"We don't need one. Misa's been quite public about you being her boyfriend. She worships you; she worships Kira. It's a good bet that's the same person."

"Oh come on, Ryuzaki. You're grasping at straws."

L gave a little shrug. "Such singular obsession with two idols would be almost impossible. Really, for Light-kun's safety, he ought to stay here. In daily life, you're an easy target."

"You're just saying that to keep me from meeting Misa freely."

That was, of course, a perk in this whole situation. The harder it became for Light to transmit orders to Misa, the more out of control his situation spun. "Light-kun could still phone her or meet her here."

"Not that I'd expect _you_ to understand, maybe I want to do more with my girlfriend than _phone_ her. As for here, I don't honestly believe this whole place isn't bugged. And, no, I don't have to be Kira to want some privacy with my girlfriend." He started to turn away.

L's hand flashed out and seized Light's in a vice-like grip. "Playing the petulant teen right now is likely to get you killed."

Light stared into L's eyes and tightened his grip till L's grasp gave just enough for Light's fingers to find traction. Second by second, each increased the pressure of his hold on the other, till a tight, hot pain pulsed through L's hand.

"I'm tired of your damn suspicions controlling my life," offered Light in his most innocent, indignant voice.

"I would think you might be worried for Misa, if a serial killer is has her as a mark."

Light glanced over L's shoulder at Rem. Nervously? "Well, obviously, he won't kill her if he thinks she can lead him to me."

L drank in Light's face. Strange, its unconquerable surety and how its instants of uncertainty brought it to life. Hardly noticing what he was doing, he raised his free hand to Light's cheek. Light flinched, barely perceptibly, the narrowed a hard stare on him as L's fingers explored his unlined skin, almost a child's skin.

"What are you doing, Ryuzaki?"

"Learning you."

"You won't do it that way."

L dropped his hand but held those fiery brown eyes. "Don't think Johan can't hurt you. Certainly, you could outmatch him at chess, but if he finds you in the real world, he could--" he hesitated "--pull you apart like a boy tears off fly's wings."

Light raised an eyebrow. "Why the warning? You're so sure I'm Kira; if I fall into his trap, just let me."

Yes, that would make sense... But justice... came too much as an afterthought. L's grip slipped and he turned away. "Sorry." He flexed his hand, red and sore.

"So what's your plan? Let Misa lead Johan to me, then go ahead and arrest Misa on the rather poor pretext that she's guilty because the thirteen-day rule proved false?"

L frowned at him. That return to Misa came out of nowhere... unless for the Shinigami's benefit. "Let's set aside Misa."

Light made no particular response to that. He stood there, absently massaging his crushed hand, eyes fixed on the floor, brain clicking over--

"Dammit!" Light jumped as if startled by a practical joker. "My mom and Sayu. If Johan is targeting our house, they'd be easy pickings, and he won't care whether they're guilty or not."

L measured whether Light's words expressed genuine--if belated--concern or were merely part of the act: 50-50 he conjectured. It would be unwise to deny that Light still had affection for his family. "That's true, isn't it? I'll talk to your father about removing them to a safe house."

"Dammit," Light repeated softly and sank into a chair.

"We'll keep Light-kun and his family safe from Johan."

Light glared at him. "So that you can be the one to defeat me?"

"Light-kun understands exactly," said L, an alarm in his mind kept blaring: those words should be true, but they weren't.


	2. Bargains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina joins the task force. L has an assignment for her.

Nina stood at the head of the conference table, feeling as if she were about to ask a board of directors to give half their funds to charity.

She addressed the task force in English, their common language, carefully rehearsed to make her word choice perfect. "Before I help you, I want to be clear about why I'm here. I love my brother. He's psychotic; he's a murderer. I love him anyway. He's my twin. And I'm not here to help you catch him so that he can be sentenced to execution or life in solitary confinement. He's sick. He was tortured as a child, and he needs to be in psychiatric hospital, where he can live a life as decent as he can live."

She pulled out her sheaf of papers. "The more weight I can give to an insanity plea, the better for Johan. That is why I request each of you to fully review his file and then sign this document supporting that plea. Please understand, I'll help you catch him whether or not you sign because, if I made it a condition for my participation, I would be coercing your signatures and, thus, rendering them inadmissible. But I hope you will stand up for the just course of action and sign this statement."

Matsuda raised a tentative hand.

"Yes, Mastuda-san?"

"Please excuse my English, Miss Fortner," he enunciated carefully. "You just want us to sign we reviewed his file? To show we know more different ways he is insanity?"

Light snickered and, tapping Matsuda's arm, muttered to him something that began with " _Fortner-san wa...._ "

"Sort of," said Nina and, blushing, and handed out her papers.

* * *

That afternoon, Nina started her work on the task force, reading over the profiles L handed her. "Yes, I agree. This is the sort of hit man Johan would find easy to win over."

Behind them, Chief Yagami and Matsuda were chatting; it vexed Nina how little of the Japanese she caught.

L took the file back and handed her the next one. "From the nature of these murders, there's a 78 percent chance Johan has won him over, even though he hasn't been involved in a Counter-Kira case. Yet."

"So we'll track him?"

"Yes, it would be prudent." As L spoke, Nina heard Yagami and Matsuda stroll out of the room. The door clicked shut behind them. "Now, this one--"

"Ryuzaki," Nina cut him off, taking advantage of a rare moment alone. "May I ask you why you wouldn't sign the statement about Johan?"

"You said you didn't require it."

"Would you please answer my question?"

L was silent for a moment. "I don't tell courts how to try their cases."

"Or you think Johan deserves no mercy."

L reached for a donut and chewed thoughtfully. "Yes, I think Johan deserves no mercy. And neither does Kira." He clicked on his white noise generator, though the room was not supposed to be bugged. "And if you want to see Kira brought to justice, Frau Fortner, I've concluded you will be most directly of assistance not with Johan but with Misa."

"How so?"

"Misa is the Second Kira. This is 92 percent probable. But if we're going to use her to implicate Light, we need to find her Death Note, which very likely was once his. And Misa, despite appearances to the contrary, isn't stupid. To defend Light and serve Kira, she'll have it meticulously hidden, and we can't put her under extensive surveillance without leaving ourselves open to legal action that would jeopardize our ability to continue this investigation. Therefore, we need a person whom Misa can trust enough to let crucial information slip."

Nina felt sick, as if she'd been ordained the pivot of some crude psychological test. "I don't want to be the one to betray the trust of a traumatized little girl. And what makes you think she'd trust me anyway?"

"She won't trust you at once, of course. But she will come to trust you for several reasons. She suffers from lack of a woman to confide in. She's the sort of girl who wants to gossip about her boyfriend, but when her boyfriend is Kira, that isn't easy. She will be drawn to you because both of you found your parents murdered. She will readily assume that you hate Johan because he murdered your parents. She'll assume that this unpunished murder predisposes you to sympathize with Kira's justice, that you might easily become Kira's follower. Encourage her in this belief. Let her see you as Kira's ally, a potential double agent on the task force. Then, when the time is right, we'll create a story that will convince her she needs to let you hide her Death Note to protect her and Light from arrest. Once you have it, we'll arrest them."

Nina stood and paced the room to convince herself her legs still worked. "She doesn't deserve to be treated that way."

"Is that observation germane?"

Nina glared at the back of his head, watching him pour tea with the movements of a circus performer.

When she said nothing, L added, "Kira has murdered thousands of people. He averages nineteen per day. Did they all deserve it?"

Nina hesitated. "Light will be suspicious."

"Yes, which is another reason why your interactions with Misa must feel very natural, very unobjectionable. You can assume that Misa will tell Light all about it."

Nina raked her fingers through her hair as she sometimes did when she wanted to feel she could tear off the past if she tore off her scalp. "All right," she snapped. "We're none of us clean; I suppose I can let myself get dirtier for this. But while we're talking about who doesn't deserve what, will you at least sign my statement?"

"No."

* * *

 _Document: J2730-40-8214D_

 _I, the undersigned, have reviewed files R743-R826, relating to the party known as Johan, and attest that his criminal actions clearly stem from severe childhood abuse, rendering him mentally unstable to the point of psychosis._

 _In my judgment as a participant in Case ICPO-T74A, concerned with apprehending the party known as Johan, justice would be best served by placing him in a maximum-security psychiatric institution, where he can receive the care his mental illness indicates._

 _Signed,  
Yagami Light, Special Investigator, 14 July 2007._

* * *

L had just gotten out of the shower when someone knocked. His hair still dripping, he threw on a shirt and got the door.

Fortner again. Here to complain more about Misa's feelings? She slid in past him without waiting to be asked and closed the door behind her. "I've been waiting to see you since last night. Inconspicuously, I mean."

L eyed the envelope in her hand. For an instant, he thought she would harass him about Johan's insanity plea again. But that would be absurd and out of character. He held out his hand for the letter. It was addressed in Japanese, but inside, it was English:

 _Miss Fortner:_

 _I believe you are in contact with your brother and can convey this following proposal to him. I also understand that my proposal will be distasteful for you. But your loyalty to your brother outweighs your regard for L, isn't that so? You know L will have no mercy on Johan._

 _Surely you think I would kill Johan just as quickly as L would. Of course, I would if I could. But Johan defies my means. You know I require real names to kill, and Johan's name is one of those hidden most thoroughly in the world. In apprehending Johan, L has more means. Fighting me, Johan will have a chance. Against L, it is just the question of time. You shot your brother once. Don't be his killer again._

 _Kira._

 _Johan:_

 _You and I will always be enemies, but you know the maxim: my enemy's enemy is my friend. One common enemy makes us friends. L wants to destroy us both. If he destroys me--don't make any mistake--he will come for you next. He wanted to defeat you nine years ago. He has always regretted he arrived too late. Let us join together to extirpate this self-proclaimed world's greatest force for justice. We both want him gone. Our powers united, he will be no match against us. After that, do your best to topple all my plans. And I'll meet you on that battlefield. Please reply via your sister._

 _Kira._

"Look at the return address," said Fortner. "He's mocking us; you see it?"

"Yokohama? Dr. Tenma's home town."

"He's saying, 'I know all about you and your companions, but you'll never track me down.' Who could be his contact in Yokohama?"

"It doesn't matter," said L. He handed the letter back to her and grabbed a towel to dry his hair. "Kira has hundreds of worshippers in Yokohama who would be willing to forward this letter for him." He threw his towel on the bed and put his hands in his pockets. "There's a 52--no, 48 percent chance he actually expected you to go along with this. But he's also measuring you to see how you'll react, so it's best you don't. We won't mention it again."

"And the letter?"

L took it back from her. "I'll enter it into evidence."

Fortner turned to go but then looked back. "Doesn't it bother you he wants to kill you?"

"What else would he want to do with me?" He crossed to his coffee service and piled some sugar cubes in his cup. He stopped when he heard the door close behind Fortner and read over the letter again. _What else would Light want to do?_ The very first day they'd had dealings with each other, Kira had tried to kill him. So why should this turn of events disappoint him?

* * *

Nina did her best to put the letter out of her mind. The situation was preempted. No temptation for Johan, no hazard for L. Nina had other things to think about... like breaking little Misa and wrecking her life. To play that hand, Nina would have to study the Kira case inside out. She sat down to do so as she might prepare to go to court.

"Can I help with your studies, Frau Fortner?"

Nina swiveled her chair around sharply. Yagami Light's softly accented German always surprised her. _It's not his fault; it's just that he and L are the only ones who speak German to me here (besides Tenma) and it startles me not to hear Japanese. That's all. That--and that he's very likely a mass murderer. Very likely he's the one who just asked me to help my brother murder L._

She smiled. "No, thank you. I don't want to take you away from the investigation just to get me up to speed."

Light returned her smile and sat next to her. "Please don't let that be a concern. I'm happy to help whenever I can."

"Thank you. I'll bear that in mind." Anger pricked her. If he was Kira, he was damn cool about it. She decided to probe him. "I've just been reading up on Misora Naomi. Her file states she's a suspected victim of Kira. Do you think he killed her?"

"Yes. She was going to marry one of the FBI agents trying to find Kira; he may have feared, therefore, she had--I can't think of right the word--hurtful information about him."

"But she wasn't a criminal."

"No, she wasn't."

"In fact, she had a impressive career as an FBI agent. She even solved BB Murders."

Light chuckled. "I think Ryuzaki would say she helped."

Nina decided move in deeper. "B was quite a psychopath--or still is, I suppose, in his private thoughts."

"So I understand."

"But there's part of me that will always be grateful to him."

Light shot her a curious look.

"You see, some years before he became a murderer, he located my mother."

After a moment, Light said, "Well, I can understand why you would be grateful."

She studied at him, waiting.

Light leaned back in his chair and crossed his knees as if settling in for good, long think. "People's actions are always an extremely complex--what's the word for putting different things together?"

"'Mix'? 'Combination'?"

"Yes, thank you, an extremely complex mix of good and bad, good thoughts, bad thoughts. Kira's philosophy doesn't... concern with that. Kira sees a person only as black or white." He fixed his soft, brown eyes on her. "You say it very well. That's exactly why we have to stop him."

She stared back into that sincere, youthful face, the police chief's son. _He can't possibly be a murderer._ And then she thought of all the people who'd thought the same thing about Johan.

* * *

But in the end, it was Misa who convinced her.

"And this one," she said holding up the next photo, "is Misa and her Light at, um, how do you say where animals live?"

"The zoo?"

"Zoo, _hai_ , with pen-- penguins, _ne_?"

"Yes, your English is very good." At least, it was very rapid. Nina poured more lemonade and scooted her chair a little closer to Misa's, not entirely faking her interest in the photos strewn over the kitchen table. You could hardly see the penguins, but Light stood front and center, smiling, an arm tight around a beaming Misa. They looked like a happy couple.

"Misa likes penguins very much, but she likes this more...." She giggled and held out another photo. It showed Misa and Light kissing--or rather, to judge from the bounce in Misa's hair, Misa hurling herself at Light, who, half obscured behind flying blonde tresses, remained inscrutable.

Misa dropped the picture with a heavy sigh. "Oh, Nina, Misa misses her Light so much since he had to hiding for awful Johan. I know he's Nina's brother, but I feel sorry for Nina for so awful brother." She took Nina's hand and stared at her with those strange, blue-dyed contacts. "Does Nina understand what feels when love someone so, _so_ much and can't be with him and miss making love so much feel like all body will... will..." She made an explosive sound and spread her hands wide.

"Explode?"

"Yes! Nina knows."

Nina patted her arm. "Of course, I do," she lied.

Misa sat back in her chair in a pout. "All cuz of awful Johan."

 _Awful Johan._ Nina thought about the word. She'd read somewhere that back around 1700 or 1800, the word had meant _awesome_ , _inspiring awe. That's Johan,_ she reflected with a surge of pride, followed hard by shame that she could possibly be proud of him.

"He's awful to Nina too, _ne_?" said Misa, perhaps catching Nina's pensive stare.

"He killed my parents, my adoptive parents. He killed every family that ever took us in. It's like he was compelled to make sure we would never, ever be happy."

"Nina- _chan_." Misa startled Nina by sweeping her into a hug that smelled of floral conditioner and rosewood soap.

Nina put her arms around Misa's slim back. _I don't want to hurt you, Misa. And if I could ever defend you in court, I'd point out that you've plainly been mentally unstable ever since your parents' deaths. And if you'd never seen a Death Note, you'd never have done anyone any harm. And I wish I didn't have to do this, but we have to overcome Kira._

Chin on her shoulder, Misa murmured into her ear, "Misa understands what feels when come home and find--" She broke off and, pulling back, wiped the tears from her cheeks. "But Kira... Kira answer Misa's prayer." She paused. "For justice." And the eyes she fixed on Nina were adult and penetrating. "Kira can save Nina too from Johan. Kira can; that's all. Why does Nina work to find Kira, with police? Nina should help Kira, _ne_?"

Nina swallowed. _Here we go._ "I--please don't tell anyone this." She leaned in close, and Misa did likewise. "I didn't join the task force to find Kira. I joined it because... oh, Misa, in Germany they've been trying to catch Johan for twelve years now. They even had him, comatose in a hospital, and they let him walk out the window." She gave an incredulous laugh. "But this investigation--these people--L... now Johan's tangled up with Kira, they might actually be able to catch him for me. They're not stupid; they've already defeated one Kira," she smiled, "with help from you."

Misa beamed through glimmering tears. "That Higuchi was stupid, ugly, old man. Misa had pretend to like him." She made a face.

"You're very brave and very smart," said Nina sincerely.

Misa hung her head shyly in that way that seemed particular to Japanese girls. "Oh, no, no. Misa's very not brave, not smart."

Randomly, Nina wondered, _Does Tenma like Japanese girls? Has he ever slept with a Japanese girl?_

Misa looked up at her with big, sincere eyes. "But that Higuchi was so much awful, he was bad to Kira. Bad, you know, did--how to do say--bad things Kira wouldn't do."

"He made Kira look bad? Gave him a bad name?"

"Yes, _so_. But Misa not let that. Misa does anything for Kira."

 _But the record states she agreed to help in order to please Light. Maybe she's turning the story around to get me to admire Kira more._ Nina glanced at photo on the table: Light at a petting zoo, it seemed, laughing as he pushed back a goat nibbling his hair. _He can't be Kira... though she's crazy for Kira, though she's crazy for Light. He's just a kid._ She stared at the picture. And then, as she did every day, she reminded herself of the hours she'd played on sidewalks with Johan, gathering acorns and drawing with chalk, playing hopscotch, just like any kids. _Oh, yes, he can be Kira. Who else would Misa "do anything" for?_


	3. How to Love a Psychopath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenma and Nina have a tryst; Johan has a chat with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Crime and Punishment_ translation by Constance Garnett.

Exhausted and stinging, Nina fled to her hotel and picked up a book in hope of forgetting about Misa. The book only made her feel worse; it seemed to say, _"Run back to Misa and confess your crimes or suffer and suffer and..."_

A knock sounded at the door.

"Who is it?" Tensing as always, Nina put down her book.

"Just me," came the quiet voice in German.

She sped to the door and threw it open. He stood there--right there--not two meters away. Too close: it was always too close at first. And she'd been waiting, but here he was, and she wasn't... what could she do? She had always been powerless against him.

"Come in before someone sees you." She grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

He was dressed like her, not in women's clothes but in her style: jeans and V-neck. It was like seeing her reflection in a funhouse mirror. He gazed at her with half closed eyes that seemed to rest somewhere between sleepy and sad but in reality were neither.

"Why did you knock? You never knock."

He gazed in silence a moment more. "We're on the same side now. Aren't we?" As he spoke, he stepped past her, impossibly slowly, like a dream.

Instinct cried she had to stop him, but she stood there, motionless, watching him glide till, absurdly late, she realized he was getting a glass of water. At that instant, the world snapped back into real time. She almost laughed.

"When did you get to Japan?"

She didn't expect an illuminating answer, but he replied simply, "Three hours ago."

"Three hours? I thought you were here before me." When he drooped and said nothing, she added, "You must be tired."

He took a chair and sipped his water.

"Why don't you rest here for a while?" _I should turn him in, while he's here, while he's off guard._

Johan sat still and read her with those half-lidded eyes. "Thank you."

_He's right. I couldn't do that._

* * *

After half an hour, the book was winding down, and Nina's voice was wearing out, but she read on:

_"I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired. And I should have liked at this moment to be able to control myself."_

_He glanced at her mistrustfully._

_"Where were you all night?"_

_"I don't remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my mind once and for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn't make up my mind," he whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again._

_"Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonova and I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God!"_

_Raskolnikov smiled bitterly._

_"I haven't faith, but I have just been weeping in mother's arms; I haven't faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don't know how it is, Dounia, I don't understand it."_

"If we could locate Kira," said Johan, "it would be best to kill him quickly."

Nina set down the book and attempted a smile. "Brother, I don't believe you're paying attention to this story at all."

His head shifted sleepily against her shoulder. "Kira isn't Rodya. _Kira_ has faith. We could break his faith--all faith can be broken. Eventually. But probably he'd kill us before we succeed; I want to wager on better odds than that, so it's best to kill him quickly."

Nina sighed. "Are you saying it's better to have faith, then? I mean, does that make him stronger than us?"

Johan scooted down into the bed. "Can we sleep now?" he asked in a little boy voice.

"All right," said Nina with trepidation.

She switched off the light and lay down facing away from him, rigid, ready to bolt from the nameless nothing to fear. After a few minutes, her anxiety dissolved. It came home to her: the hollowness of years in her room alone. She'd never slept soundly--she saw it now--without the lull of his breathing near her. His rhythm had grown heavier since childhood, but it remained him, unmistakable, the presence that had been her second self since the womb.

* * *

_The walls pressed: thick, suffocating black, endless, unendurable..._

Nina shot awake with a start to feel an answering start beside her. The moment he pulled away, she understood: the crushing wall had just been Brother shifting in his sleep to lean against her shoulder.

Now he was breathing as hard as she was. She clicked on the light, and they stared at each other, tousled and trembling.

"It was just a dream," she said, as if that made it better.

He sat up ran his hands through his hair. "What time is it?"

It seemed impossible he wouldn't know. She glanced at the clock. "3:38."

"I don't want to go to sleep again." He gave her that wide-eyed, irrefutable look.

"I'll make coffee." She got up, a little unsteady.

When she turned around again, he was watching her, leaning his head on his hand. "Tell me what they've told you about Kira."

_I'll be damned if I tell you who they think he is. Innocent or guilty, he'll get better from me than that. And I'll be damned if I'll tell you about the notebook. But..._

"You know he needs a name and a face... except the Second Kira, who just needs a face... or may somehow have the power to know all names...."

* * *

As soon as Kenzo closed the door behind her, Nina asked, "Has he visited you?"

His heart clenched, as it always did. "No. But he visited you?"

She sank into a chair. "I shouldn't have come here. I'm not equipped to make these decisions. I don't--" She gazed up at him, imploring. "I don't want to turn him in."

He sat beside her. "I don't either. Partly, I do."

She ran her fingers through her hair. "How can we not after everything he does?"

Kenzo sighed. He knew she knew the answer. They both understood his allure. After a time, he said, "I keep thinking of Wagner's _Ring_. I can't get it out of my head."

"It's horrible, isn't it, when that happens?"

She replied so readily that he glanced up in surprise. "I didn't know you listened to Wagner."

"Maybe we listen for the same reason." Her eyes slipped inward. "The other day, I kept getting the Siegfried leitmotif in my head, the way it plays at the end of _Die Walküre_ over Brünnhilde's enchanted-sleep music. You know: the way the sleep music is playing along and suddenly this big, deep epic prophecy blasts from under it, that the superman is coming. And I keep seeing Johan rising out of the ashes.... But it isn't Johan; it's Kira." She paused. "I suppose if Johan is Siegmund, Kira must be Siegfried--and Johan is just a preparation for what's to come."

Kenzo frowned at her, trying to process her metaphor. "So Johan is Kira's father?"

She laughed. "Maybe. If it weren't for people like Johan, Kira would be out of job, correct?" She chuckled again. "And if I'm Sieglinde, does that make me Kira's mother?"

Kenzo didn't answer. He didn't like to think of Nina as Sieglinde, who suffered so much and died so young and powerless.

After a moment, Nina sang in a small voice, "Kehrte der Vater nur heim. Mit dem Knaben noch weilt er im Wald. Mutter! Mutter! Mir bangt der Mut: nicht freund und friedlich scheinen die Fremden." She stopped. "I keep returning to that dark forest, Tenma. When the unfriendly strangers come, I lose my courage, and Mother never saves me."

He put an arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder. For the thousandth time, he tried to imagine the dark mazes of her mind, and part of him was glad he couldn't, while part mourned the futility of their attempts to ever know each other.

After a while she asked, "So whatever happened to the lady in Myanmar?"

"Irina? She's fine. She's still in Myanmar." It seemed wrong to discuss her somehow, though nothing especially bad had ever come of their relationship. Maybe it was Kenzo himself it seemed wrong to discuss, his life.

"Are you still seeing each other?"

"Not for about three years."

Nina raised her head to look at him. "Three years? Is that how little we talk, Tenma? I could have sworn you were writing me about her a couple of months ago."

He let his arm slip from her shoulder because leaving it there just felt silly now. "We don't talk enough. I don't talk enough with most of the people I care about."

Nina looked suddenly very sad. "Me neither." She stared at the floor with that those tired eyes that made her look older. After a moment, she stirred. "So are you with someone now?"

Kenzo felt himself go red. He tried to think of reasons she'd be asking this, beyond the obvious, which couldn't possibly be correct. "No, not since Irina."

"That's some exciting life you lead."

Kenzo gave her a quizzical look. "I wouldn't exactly say my life is devoid of excitement."

Nina chuckled and wiped a tear--or something like it--from her eye.

"How about you?" he asked, feeling like a fool. "Are you with someone?"

"My life's about as exciting as yours." She was watching her sneakers, shoulders slumped. She'd always struck him as very unlike Eva in that: her willingness to look plain. It made her beautiful in a way Eva never would be, though Eva, to be sure, had her own beauty. "Look, Tenma-- Will you sleep with me or what?"

Kenzo's head felt ready to burst into flames. He wondered how much was the ambient heat and how much was... _I'm a fireball,_ was all he could think. His pulse pounded; his flesh prickled. He was actually on the point of asking, _Is it hot in here?_ but stopped himself. She couldn't possibly mean it.

"Nina, I'm too old for you."

She smiled tightly. "I'm thirty-two."

"I'm nearly fifty."

Her silence left him keenly aware of their physical proximity: side by side on matching hotel chairs, almost mirroring each other's posture, hands clasped between their knees... her right knee, his left knee not ten centimeters apart. Far closer than just a few minutes before when he'd hugged her without thinking.

"Yeah," said Nina finally. "I knew you didn't feel that way about me. But as much as I feel like an idiot right now, I had to ask." She gave him a weak smile. "So now we can forget it."

He didn't feel...? His world skewed; up seemed down and left seemed right. How could she think...? "Forgetting it" would probably be the best of all possible ideas. But how could she think...?

"Nina, it isn't that I don't want to--"

"It's okay, Tenma."

"I'm not just saying that to be nice. It's true; it's been true for...." The pained, searching look she gave him knocked the words out of his head. "I don't mean to say I ever dreamed... I don't want you to think I've had... inappropriate thoughts. I mean, of course, I've had thoughts from time to time, but I haven't indulged them; I wouldn't do that. I always knew we wouldn't... we weren't.... I'm too old for you," he finished lamely.

She frowned at him. "Too old. What does that mean exactly?"

"It means--" At least that question was clear enough he could organize himself around it. "When we met, you were a child under my care."

"More than twenty years ago."

"I know, but in my head, I've always had that responsibility to you... maybe because you'd lost your parents; I don't know. And in that... in that relation, I can't ask you for anything back. It would be... it would feel like an abuse of my position." She went on frowning, so he added, "I know it isn't rational. I know you're an adult, a very capable adult. But you're...."

"No, I understand." She dropped her eyes. "I know exactly what you mean. It's very you." She hesitated. "But I... I don't have dreams either--you know--of settling down with you. I know our lives don't mesh. We're both career people when it comes down to it, and you travel and I don't, and we'd drive each other crazy. But I'm also pretty sure by now that there won't be..." She trailed off. "There won't be any man who measures up to you. I know that's asking for trouble, to compare the men I date to you. I don't go around trying to do it, but I can't really help myself."

Part of him stood flabbergasted that she thought so much of him, and yet part of him had known it and had been fleeing her for years for that reason. It made him feel very vain, which made him feel low and guilty.

He heard himself say, "I don't think there's another woman who can measure up to you either. You astound me, Nina. I don't know how you've survived."

"Let's not talk about that," she said shortly. "Let's just... not talk."

She gave him an imploring look. Tentatively, he took her hand and kissed it and felt, with unnerving suddenness, a different fire sweep up through his body. Like falling toward the center of the Earth, he leaned in and met her lips. He closed his eyes and to his thoughts came not Irina, not Eva, not any woman he'd known; the one his mouth remembered was Wolfgang. _We also sat in a hotel room and kissed, and I thought how his lips tasted just like a woman's. We lost ourselves within each other, for a moment. A moment later, he was dead._ He pulled Nina closer.

* * *

When Nina got back to her hotel room, the first thing she saw was Johan, sitting ankles crossed on her bed, reading. She swallowed down a surge of fright and tried to pretend her ears weren't bright red at the thought of coming straight to Johan from Tenma's bed.

She closed the door quickly. "You shouldn't be here."

Johan put down his book. "Tell me what's it's like," he said, "to lie beneath our doctor."

Vertigo swept over her; her face blasted fever heat. _He was watching. All my life, everything in my life. I'll have no idea ever of how much of me he's watched._ His serene eyes rested intent on her. Weak, she sank into a chair. He got up and took the chair beside her, one knee drawn up so he could easily face her.

What could she say? _Now, Brother, your question's uncouth._ Absurdity.

"It--it was exactly what you'd expect from him." In fact, she had no idea what Johan's expectations might be. "He's thoughtful; he's--"

"Not like that. Tell me everything."

Of course, that's what she'd have to tell him. At the end of the story, she always told him everything. _I'm sorry, Tenma._

"He's... well, not as young as he used to be. You remember how beautiful he was when we first met him, and even ten years later, he was so trim and fit. He's not as much now, and somehow it seems strange to me that his hair's going gray. But I like the lines on his face.

"We undressed first, rather matter-of-factly. I don't think either one of us has the temper for tearing off each other's clothes. It was about 3 p.m.; it was pretty hot. We'd drawn the blinds tight, so the light was gray in his hotel room. We got into bed, underneath a light blanket. I lay on my back, and he leaned over me, half on top of me and stroked my hair and looked at me with that wistful look. His skin's a bit slack, but his arms are still hard. He slid his hand down my neck and arm and over my breast.

"He said it had been a long time since he'd touched a woman's breasts. Three years, he said. Well, he'd said that earlier. I said I hadn't been with men very often, that my love life usually derailed before we reached that point. I said I didn't feel I was very... adept at it: love, sex; I don't even know which I meant. He just gave me that wistful look and kissed me."

"How does he kiss?"

She hesitated. "I think he doesn't like to use his tongue, or only.... Or maybe it's passion he doesn't like. It was too hot. We threw off our blanket and smoldered together--just from the heat, I mean. He was as hot between my thighs as he was against my chest."

"Was he hard by then?"

"Getting there. He asked me how I liked to be touched, and I asked him too. He guided my hand, and I did the same. Brother, do you really want to hear all this?" The look she gave him asked for mercy, though mercy, she knew, was not one of his concepts.

He replied with an unwavering, placid gaze, eyes bright. "You know you can't stop now."

Nina looked at her knees. "He put his fingers inside me, first one, then two. It doesn't arouse me; I told him that. But it gets me wetter, and--well, it's intimate, isn't it? I've known him so many years and never seriously imagined I'd be touched by him that way. When I was wet enough for him to enter me, he worked into me very gradually--with much more... caution than any other man I've been with.

"I think--no, I know because he told me--he feels guilty about being with me. Part of him still thinks of me as a child. He knows it's silly. But emotion's never rational, is it?"

Johan said nothing.

"If I said it was the best sex I've ever had, that would sound extremely clichéd, wouldn't it? But the fact is I don't want many men. And when I end up with someone, it's usually settling for what I find sort of attractive. So if he's the first person I've ever truly, totally wanted, is it surprising it was the best sex of my life?"

She glanced at Johan, surprised to his eyes downcast, lost in thought.

"It made me almost sleepy--I mean during, not after--or not sleepy but vague, like I could let my mind go. It was effortless at first. I'd never had effortless sex before. He was gentle enough it only hurt me a little. It always hurts me at least a little; I'm not sure why; maybe I'm just like that, or maybe it's because I haven't done it enough."

"Or maybe it's because you know it's what they all expect." His eyes were on her again. His voice, as usual, soft and glad, like a child sharing his golden secret.

 _God help me; I love his voice. I could escape from hell and march back to it to his voice._ "He didn't expect it."

"Are you sure?"

_He has to say these things. He doesn't know how not to._

"I know my Tenma." She had a sudden urge to glance at her watch. _How long till this interminable story is over?_ "Toward the end, he wasn't so gentle. He plowed into me, and I... loved that in him." She paused, reflecting. "He is a giver, you know? Yes, you know; of course, you do. He gives without stint; he gives without thinking. But he's never been at peace with letting others give to him. But inside me, he lost himself. And it made him so human. He cried out."

"And did you come then?"

"I came a little before he did; that's never happened to me before either." Nina stood and got a glass of water. "The 'before' part, I mean. Afterward, we talked. We talked around and around and said nothing, like most human conversations. I don't want to talk about it."

"Afterward doesn't matter," said Johan, his eyes still on the spot where she'd been sitting.

Nina smiled. Talking about the rest would be easy, so naturally he didn't need it. She ambled across the room and gazed absently out the window at the Japanese city.

"He won't stay." The quiet voice punctured her ears.

She didn't turn. "I know."

"In the end, he'll always be against us."

Feeling nothing, Nina tried to parse that statement. How much of it did he believe, and how much did he say to hurt her? How much was to convince himself not to cherish hope in Tenma, not to hope in anything?

It would be futile to refute him.

(How much of it was true?)

She heard him move and, with the usual twinge of panic, spun to face him.

He was standing two meters away, looking too much like her in his jeans and T-shirt. "Should I destroy Kira for you, before Dr. Tenma comes for me?"

"He won't," she said without reflecting.

"Should I?" he repeated.

"Can you?"

"Yes."

Nina took a step forward and faced him like a mirror. "No. You can't. But together...." It seemed so simple suddenly. "We can't touch Kira directly, but we can strike him through his agent, an actress named--"

"Amane Misa."

He knew, just as L said he would. "Yes. Through Misa. All I need you to do is threaten her, just a little, when I tell you, when I've won her trust. Make her run to me, and we'll stamp out Kira's utopia."

* * *

Kenzo came back to his hotel early from a fruitless day of researching Johan's contacts. He hadn't been able to focus on it. His thoughts were full of Nina, his body full, tingling to touch her again, as he probably shouldn't. What good could come of their entangling themselves, however much blind instinct yearned for it.

Absently, he swiped his key card and opened his door.

"Hello, Doctor Tenma."

His skin jumped. He half-turned, dizzy, toward the familiar figure, shaded, as he always preferred, against the light of the hotel window. _He's not in his coat. Of course not: it's summer._ The T-shirt made him look slimmer, like Nina.

_He's here, just what we were waiting for. I have him; I could turn him in. I could and I should and I..._

Kenzo faced him and stood straight and made himself breathe. "I was wondering when you'd come to see me."

"I know you're here to turn me in to the police." His voice was the same as ever, boyish, oddly enthusiastic. "It's all right. You can call them now."

 _I should; it is what I'm here for._ "No," he said softly.

Johan said nothing for a moment. A frown seemed to mar his shadowed features. "Please."

 _Does he really want that? Did he want to die when he asked me to shoot him? When he asked Nina all those years ago?_ "No."

His face unfurrowed, serene as a Renaissance angel. "You'll be eaten by the darkness."

Kenzo swallowed. "Are you all right?" He realized he truly wanted an answer.

"Exhilarated. I have found the ultimate expression of my purpose."

"In opposing Kira, you mean?"

"Yes. In demonstrating the triumph of the darkness that sings at my heels."

Kenzo realized he was still clutching his key card. He made himself step to the table and set it down. Johan's face followed him, half gold in the sunlight. "Johan, won't you please think of your sister?"

Johan didn't answer at once. "I think you mean by that, Doctor Tenma, that I should behave nicely because she would prefer it. But you misunderstand on two counts. I could refuse the darkness, and it would still swallow her; none of my actions can alter that. The second point is: she is not opposed to it in the way you think she is."

_He believes that._

Kenzo could see him clearer now. His face had aged since last they'd met: like Nina's, always in step with her. The prime of adulthood had refined him, individuated his beauty. Yet his porcelain stillness remained as inhuman as ever. _Cornflower glass eyes._

"Why did you come to see me?"

"You were expecting me."

Kenzo leaned against the back of one his chairs, hoping a pretense of relaxation would relax him. "Yes. But I couldn't tell you why."

After a moment, Johan said, "I wanted to see with my own eyes the man who's violated my sister."

Kenzo dug his fingers into his chair to keep from reeling. His face flamed. _It isn't personal. It's just what he does: he finds the thing that will hurt the most and flings it at you. You know that; you know that's all it is._

"She told me all about it," Johan added. "She told me about the violence in you."

Kenzo looked down and held himself rigid, rejecting thought.

"Are you planning to violate her again?"

Yes? No? _I didn't violate her_ was the only possible answer to that question, yet it wasn't an answer Kenzo could give because he did feel it as a violation, and Johan knew he did.

With a deep breath, Kenzo made himself look up at those boreal eyes, not at all like Nina. _And this isn't about Nina._ He wondered, he always did, what would rise from the depths of that mind if he could wipe away the scars. A fragment of Goethe played through his thoughts:

_Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke  
Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag._

_Johan, you would be a glorious work. How you'd shine like the first day of creation._

As if on stilts, unthinking, he stumbled forward and wrapped Johan in his arms... for the first time... _like the First Day._

Johan stiffened and put a hand on his arm as if to push him away but didn't. Then, his other arm went around Kenzo's back, tentative. After a few seconds, Kenzo let him go because he stayed still and unyielding. _How many times in his life has touch been used against him? Small wonder he doesn't like it._

When he looked up, Johan's eyes were on him, implacable as ever. Johan raised a thumb to Kenzo's cheek and brushed away a tear that wasn't there. "Do you want me to kill Kira for you? Or would it comfort you more thoroughly if Kira killed me? If you want me to kill Kira, all you have to do is tell me and I'll do it."

"You make it sound easy," said Kenzo faintly.

"It is easy. I'm three steps from seeing it accomplished. But once I take the first step, the other two must follow quickly, so I won't begin it until we're ready."

Kenzo stared at him. Was that a bluff? From anyone else it would have to be. But from Johan, who'd once driven a whole town to murder...

"I'll never be ready for that," said Kenzo. "I want to see Kira arrested."

"Oh. A shame for you that's not going to happen." Johan stepped past him toward the door, and Kenzo, as ever, couldn't turn to watch him pass. From behind him, the soft voice came again: " _Sayonara_ , Doctor Tenma. I love you." The door clicked.

 _Love? Love you?_ Had he heard that right? Had his mind made it up? Why couldn't he ever be sure what was true and what wasn't with Johan? _Loves me?_

_Sayonara? Is he telling me this is the last time? We'll never see each other again? Never... never see him again? Never? Is he planning...?_

Tenma made a dive for his phone and with trembling fingers dialed Nina.

She answered on the second ring with a somewhat incongruous, " _Moshi moshi._ "

"Nina, he was here."

"Where is he now?" Panic edged her voice.

"He just left. I... I'm worried about him." _Inane thing to say._ "If you see him--" His eye lit suddenly on a piece of paper on his dresser. Heart hammering, he picked it up, half expecting to read wild prophecies of bloodshed. What he saw was worse somehow. "My God, he's left me a phone number."

"Me too."

Kenzo lost himself staring at those digits, till Nina's voice interrupted.

"It'll be all right, Tenma. What did he say?"

 _Goodbye?_ "It wasn't what he said. It's just... I'm worried about him. If he comes to you, we need a plan."

"We have a plan."

 _We do?_ What "we" she was referring to, the "wait-until-we're-ready" we? No, not Nina. She would never sanction that. "What plan?"

"I'd better not tell you on the phone," said Nina. "I'd better not tell you at all. But Johan's part will be very small; no one will get hurt."

Kenzo felt his head about to implode. "Nina, it's Johan."

"I know that. But just trust me, please, that this once I know how to handle him. And if you don't trust me, trust L; I've been working with him too. We'll bring Kira in, and then we can... then we can work on saving Johan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes on naming:
> 
> 1) Those who've read the prequel might notice a naming discontinuity: in the prequel, Tenma thinks of Grimmer and "Grimmer" and here as "Wolfgang." My thought is that, in his mind, he's shifted to "Wolfgang" over the years, but I wasn't clever enough to find a way to work that in that wasn't clunky.
> 
> 2) In Japanese, Nina calls Johan "Brother" and really can't do anything else. This leaves the question of she's "really" calling him in German/Czech. I'm assuming she really is calling him "Brother" because she doesn't have a name for him that works. "Johan" is a convenient short hand, and his real name, which I assume she knows, isn't one she's ever been comfortable with.


	4. Killer vs. Killer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light, L, and Johan are all hatching different plans. Whose will come to fruition?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picked up the nursery rhyme from _Sapphire and Steel_ , maybe so did Nina.

Mr. Wammy set the letter by L's computer. L glanced at the return address. Why was B writing him? Resignedly, he took the letter out. The envelope had already been opened for security.

The letter consisted of two lines, the first in quotation marks: "You and I both are fools now." The second read: Memex it.

Memex was an old concept for an integrated workstation much like any modern computer. The idea seemed analogous to "google it," but the message must mean more. First, B wouldn't bother to tell him to google it. Second, why "memex" in particular? L began by googling it.

Three minutes later, he sighed in disappointment.

"What is it, Ryuzaki?" came Mr. Wammy's voice hovering close behind him.

"I'd hoped for a more interesting communication."

"What is he communicating?"

"He's just telling me I'm as incompetent as he is because I haven't been making progress--as he sees it--on the Kira case. He has chosen, however, to express this mundane content obliquely by misquoting a song by BOA."

Mr. Wammy leaned over him and gazed at the letter for a long moment. Too long a moment. "What's the misquote?"

"It should be, 'born as fools,' not 'both are fools.'"

"And the memex?"

"That's the indication that the quote refers to BOA. The same CD that features this song features the theme song to _Serial Experiments: Lain_ , a series which briefly invokes Vannevar Bush, who developed the idea of memex, as you know." Mr. Wammy had studied computing back when memex was current.

Mr. Wammy then did something atypically presumptuous: he took L's keyboard. He slid it over and googled up the song in question, downloaded it, and clicked play. L took back his keyboard, but he let the song continue--unnecessary though it was to indulge B's histrionics. L didn't have to hear the song to know which lines were relevant.

 _I was born and raised as an Eastern girl in a Western world._

Assuming the gender was incidental, those words could refer to L and B both: B's awkward way of reasserting his favorite old refrain, that he and L had some sort of special kinship.

 _Speaking impartially, there doesn't seem to be a place for me._

Well, that was self-indulgent insofar as it referred to B, imperceptive insofar as it referred to L.

And then came the chorus, more in the special kinship vein:

 _You and I born as fools now,  
You and I think we rule now._

Born as fools, both are fools. He had to take out the "born," of course, because it undercut his reference to the Kira case. _The Kira case makes a fool of me; thus, my successes are ultimately not superior to his rotting in prison because I've lost to Kira as he lost to me--that's what he means._

"It would have been more impressive if he didn't have to rewrite the song to make his point," thought L aloud.

"I think it's an honest mistake," said Mr. Wammy, sitting beside him. "I remember him singing that song years ago. I'm quite certain he said 'both are fools': anyway, that's what it sounds like on the recording."

The song ended with a lot of wailing that was viscerally stimulating in a way L found annoying, as it prevented him from fully concentrating on anything that actually mattered.

Near the end, Matsuda wandered in. "What's that?" he called out over the music.

No one answered him.

When the song ended, L went back to reviewing the latest Interpol reports. He'd read a paragraph, when Mr. Wammy appropriated his keyboard again, with a solicitous, "Pardon me."

"Watari, is your own workstation experiencing a technical problem?"

"No, but it's in another room." He started another song playing.

Matsuda peered over their shoulders at the computer screen. "Is that the theme song to _Lain_?"

L couldn't say he was surprised to find this sort of information taking up space in Matsuda's brain. He sat very still to keep from making a reply he'd regret.

Mr. Wammy, too, sat immobile.

"This is not part of B's message to me," said L.

The song pattered away:

 _And you know that it means so much,  
And you don't even feel a thing._

 _I am falling;  
I am fading;  
I am drowning;  
Help me to breathe.  
I am hurting;  
I have lost it all;  
I am losing;  
Help me to breathe._

"No," said Mr. Wammy when the chorus had played through. "It's his message to me."

* * *

The song eddying in his mind, Quil closed the door to his room, turned around, and almost smacked into the Shinigami. "God dammit!" he exclaimed, involuntarily leaping back.

She slouched there, untroubled by the fact that she'd nearly given him a heart attack. "Yagami Light says as soon as the one called Johan is gone, L will go after Misa."

"Does he?" It sounded profoundly wrong to hear her speak in English.

She raised a bony finger at him. "You have influence over L."

Quil laughed. "Oh, you think?"

"You make certain Misa is safe, or I will kill you."

The threat ran past him like a leaf in the breeze. "Why shouldn't Misa be safe? Why on earth should we want to hound a poor, deranged little child who wouldn't have been any harm to anyone if _you people_ hadn't started throwing around your instruments of destruction. My God, what the hell are you rabbiting on about, 'protecting Misa'? We're on not the ones who are threatening Misa. Misa is falling, Misa is drowning, Misa needs help, not to stay out of prison but just to learn how to live in this world, just to grow up to be a--a grown up. Because right now, Misa is losing everything, and it's not damn well L's fault; it's bloody his--and yours."

Rem gazed at him a long time, till the "kill you" began to dig back into his mind. _Kill you._

 _You._ It seemed impossible she could call him anything other than " _omae_." Certainly that was the only way for a god to address a mortal. "You," plain, English "you," that could mean anything. From her, it sounded too polite.

 _Yes, tell me you'll kill me; I don't deserve better. My B, my child, the child in my care, I let him fall, I let him drown. I placed his instruments in his hands just as you did to Misa._

"You," Rem repeated. "You keep Misa safe, or I will kill you." With that, she lumbered, creaking, past him and out through the wall.

Quil sat on his bed and concentrated on breathing, concentrated on Misa, because B was beyond his help. (Was he? _If I went to see him now..._ But it was ridiculous to dream of leaving in the middle of the investigation.) After a minute or two, he pulled out his mobile. "Nina? When you have a moment, I'd like to talk to you about Misa, her legal prospects, assuming she is the Second Kira. I'm sure we can agree if anyone ever deserved a chance at rehabilitation, it's her."

* * *

Nina stared at her computer screen. A week's work found her so stumped in her attempts to argue leniency for Misa that her brain had simply stopped.

L's voice jerked it back into motion. "Watari."

She watched Quil cross from the dessert cart to L's side. L nodded at his computer screen. Quil leaned over his shoulder, stared a moment, then turned abruptly and walked out of the room.

Nina glanced at Light and got trapped by his face. He'd clamped his eyes on L, like search lights zeroed on their target. Presently, he strolled over to him. "What is it, Ryuzaki?"

L merely shifted a little, giving Light more space to see the computer.

Light peered at the computer screen. After a moment, he said, "You think he killed Beyond Birthday?"

As if under shock treatment, Nina jerked at the words. Had she misunderstood the Japanese? No. If there was one word she'd picked up, it was "kill." She missed what he said next, though, but he pulled up a chair and sat as if in friendly contemplation.

L stared at the computer.

Leaden, Nina came to stand behind them. The name jumped out of the jumble of kanji that listed Kira's daily victims. B. Brilliant, psychopathic B, whom, of course, Kira would kill without reflection. B, who'd found Mama, just as she'd told--

Light looked at her. "Creepy, isn't it, Miss Fortner?" he said in English. "I was going to ask Ryuzaki if it feels personally to have Kira judge his justice to be inadequate."

L snapped him a glance, before casting his eyes on his knees. "That was an error, Light-kun." (He always called him "Light-kun," even in German or English.) "Yagami Light is too intelligent not to realize it's been personal between Kira and me since Tailor. Therefore, you aren't really asking that question."

"Therefore, I'm Kira?" asked Light, throwing a stiff glance at Nina.

 _Yes. Kira. What else could it mean? I put B in you, and you killed him._

L balanced his hands on his knees and said softly, "That or you're just naturally malicious. Which would you rather admit to?"

Light glared, and then gentled his glare. "I'm sorry, Ryuzaki," he said in Japanese and followed it up with something Nina didn't catch.

For some seconds, every one of them was motionless, silent. Then, L got up and ambled out of the room. Nina felt him go with mounting dread. It was like--it was like--it was like--like Mama letting go of her hand, like having no one left.

 _Stop, Nina. Think like a sane human being. If Light's killed B, that means--_

 _It means--_

She had to find out if what she feared was true. But she couldn't move, her eyes frozen on Light. Her eyes apparently believed that the darkness could be comprehended--conquered--by looking. They had always believed that; they had always been wrong.

He leaned back and raised his eyebrows at her, as if asking her opinion. _Liar. That's my opinion._

Nina spun and made a lunge for the door.

"He takes it very personally, doesn't he, Miss Fortner?"

The door was a million miles away. Nina forced herself to look back at the darkness. "I'm sorry, Light. I need to-- I need to find Qu-- Watari. He seemed upset." She moved to go again.

"Do you think it was Kira?"

"It's in red," Nina fumbled.

He frowned. "What is?"

"Name," she whispered as if the word itself were evil. Green: alive; red: Kira.

"Oh, sorry: I forgot you can't read Japanese. He's listed in the deaths recorded today, but he killed himself by overdose on medication. Do you think Kira ordered him to do that?"

 _He's going to take me in a minute--through the thorns, if I don't run._ Nina's head filled with helium. _Think like a sane human being, Nina._ "You're the Kira expert--you and Ryuzaki; you tell me."

"It's hard to say. B would certainly be an appropriate victim, but for complex death instructions.... I'd guess Kira is too busy with Johan."

 _Unless some fool told him to remember B._ Why did no one notice his eyes flecked with crimson? "I don't know. I need to find Watari." She bolted from the room and made a dash for the private office where she kept her laptop.

* * *

L found Mr. Wammy in his control room, pouring over the details of B's death--but for the wrong reasons and, therefore, seeing the wrong details. L stood behind him, hands in pockets. After a minute and a half, Mr. Wammy turned to him. "It wasn't Kira."

"Of course, it was."

Mr. Wammy sprang up, thunking his office chair with an angry hand. "You didn't see him after--all that. In prison. Of course, it was only a matter of time before he'd find a way to end it. Don't you dare tell me you know everything there is to know about this when you never even bothered to look at him."

L watched his toes and decided to go with, "I saw enough."

"You never saw anything. Even when you were children, you wouldn't give him a second glance."

"He was my stalker, Watari," said L quietly. "Did you expect me to make friends with him?"

Mr. Wammy prowled the room. "No," he said finally. "No, I didn't. He wasn't your responsibility; he was mine. I'm the one who failed, not you. I don't deny that." He stopped and pointed an accusatory finger. "But I don't understand how you can stand there, year after year, with your hands in your God-damned pockets, like a--like an unrelenting block of polar iceberg, while everything he ever could have been...." He laughed helplessly. "He could have been almost as great as you. And you don't even care it all crumbled to pieces. You don't even feel a thing. Dear God, no wonder he hated you."

L drew in and made himself go still. "The question is why Kira made him write that letter."

Mr. Wammy cackled. "Kira? How could Kira make him write _that_? You're saying _Kira_ told him to send coded messages in BOA lyrics based on an anime he showed me once nine years before Kira ever existed?"

"He could have given a general command, like write a suicide--"

"Yes, it's a suicide note. And we both damn well missed it. And we might have saved him." He grabbed his coat.

"Don't be ridiculous, Wa--"

"And how about _you_ , for once, not being a damn, inhuman calculating machine?" Without waiting for a reply, he strode out of the room.

L clamped his jaw down hard and balled up his fists in his pockets. He didn't move for a long time.

* * *

In response to Quil's text message, Kenzo met him in the lobby of the hotel.

"I hope you haven't waited long," he said as Quil rose to greet him. "I think I've identified one of Johan's contacts in-- What's wrong?" Quil's whole face was trembling.

"Your room," he said in almost a whisper and preceded Kenzo to the elevator.

"What is it?" Kenzo repeated when they were safe behind closed doors.

Quil contorted. "B's dead. He just--he's dead."

Kenzo hugged his friend. Quil clung to him, dry sobs rattling in his chest. They found the end of the bed and sat there, arms around each other. _He held me like this once, when I cried for Wolfgang._

"I'm sorry," murmured Kenzo. "I'm so sorry." He wondered how he'd feel about Johan's death; he shuddered to think he might face it soon.

Quil pulled back, dabbing at the tears on his cheeks. "He wasn't so bad." He laughed. "Imagine my saying that. He cut people's eyes out, and I can say that."

"I understand."

Quil gave him a sad attempt at a smile. "I know _you_ do." He fell silent. After a time, he said, "He... he loved allusion. His extraordinary intellect flourished in metaphor. He liked to send us secret messages by way of stories. He expressed himself in symbol. Some of his symbols ended up being murders. But I appreciated that cast of thought; I think that way myself. You know I love a good literary reference. He had sharp, dry wit.... I loved him," he said in a squeaky, old man's voice. "And he never knew. He thought that he had nothing."

 _He killed himself? It wasn't Kira?_ Kenzo lifted a hand to Quil's wrinkled face. It wasn't his way; it felt invasive almost--but it also seemed the right thing.

Quil returned the gesture, his hand warm and trembling. Then, he leaned in and kissed him, lips salty with tears.

 _I shouldn't do this after Nina... No, this was utterly different._ Kenzo gave him a second kiss, firm and sincere, and embraced him again.

Needing no words, they ended up curled in bed, still dressed, Kenzo holding Quil against his chest. They were quiet--and dissonant: two men past their prime, lying in each other's arms like lovers. It rattled Kenzo to see Quil so old. Nearly seventy, sagging as if hollowed out from the inside, a father who's outlived his son.

He was the same man he'd always been.

They lay there while the sun in Kenzo's window tipped westward, their stillness broken only by breaths and heartbeats and an occasional shudder of pain renewed deep inside Quil's throat.

When Quil heaved a sigh, his ribs expanded under Kenzo's arm. "It amazes me that I've lived so long and only in the last years learned my profoundest lessons about being in love."

Kenzo, on the other hand, it didn't amaze. In his own forty-nine years, he'd concluded that life is succession of revelations, each altering and deepening the perspective that preceded it.

"I loved B, but I was never _in love_ with him. The poor boy; I don't think anyone ever was. There was something about him we all found grotesque; he simply couldn't turn it off." Quil shifted to take in Kenzo's face in the muted light of the curtained afternoon. "But I am in love with you--I don't mean I especially want to sleep with you. Being in love has little to do with romantic dreams or sexual infatuation. It means being enraptured by the presence--the existence, the _co-_ existence--of another soul entangled with yours."

Kenzo nestled close to Quil, in part because he didn't know how to face him. He worked hard to keep himself apart from such entanglements.

"You know," Quil went on, "you know what L once said? He said Yagami Light was his first friend."

A sympathetic pang struck Kenzo. He kissed Quil's cheek because he couldn't think what to say.

"And I understand," said Quil in his reasonable voice. "I'm old. I'm like his granddad, and that isn't the same as a friend your own age. I know I've never been as brilliant as he is, and Light can be. But there's more to it. He knows... he knows I am not his friend, the same as I was not to B."

"Quil--"

"The same as you told me years ago. We use those children. They're our instruments; they know it. And how can they know it and possibly trust us to be their friends? And he's right, you know. Who knows how I've fucked him over or how I may in the future? He's right not to trust me." He sighed deeply.

Kenzo waited.

"But L is in love with Light, and Light is not in love with L. So L will be the one to blink. And it terrifies me, Kenzo. There is nothing I can do to help him. Who in this world could ever help another person struggle through their first lesson in being in love? I am in love with L, a thousand times more than I could ever have dreamed possible. My sun rises and sets on him. And he'll blink, and fucking Kira will kill him."

"Like he killed B?" guessed Kenzo.

"I don't know. L thinks so. So he probably did. And it kicks out my teeth, everything about B.... But, Kenzo, what if next time it's L? _What if it's L?_." He paused and whispered, "That Shinigami."

"Rem?"

"He's closing on him; he's gunning for him. That sanctimonious little bastard is going to _kill_ my child. And if he dies, what will I do?"

"We won't let it happen. Kira has no shortage of people gunning for him too." _Johan said he was three steps away..._

Quil made no reply.

"Quil, you are L's friend."

"Dear God, the things I said to him." He sat up and rubbed his palms across his face. "I have to go. If Kira killed B, he did it as a message to L. That means he's moving, and we have to move faster." He got up, smoothing out his rumpled shirt, and retrieved his tie from the nightstand. He glanced at Kenzo. "You're right, old friend. We won't let it happen."

* * *

L went for a walk on the roof. The afternoon sun, lightly smog hazed, beat him down like vacation. _You WILL sit on the beach,_ it seemed to say, _and drink wine coolers under a Village-colored umbrella_.

And then some words came into his head:  
 _I grow old, I grow old.  
I will wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled._

Mr. Wammy liked to say that sometimes. Mr. Wammy was unreasonably angry, and if his purpose here as Watari as was to be of service to L, his behavior vitiated that purpose. B had got in the way again, like always. And L did not have to time to waste on this--because Light had outmaneuvered him. That was 98 percent certain, yet L could not get a grip on how.

 _He's laughing at me. He's gloating over my confusion._

Focus.

Why would Light kill B right now? B... was connected to Johan through an oblique interaction nine years ago. B had found the twin's mother's name. B knew her name, and the mother knew the children's names, so obviously Light would use B to get the mother's name, so he could command her, in her death instructions, to send him the children's.

So was the mother dead? L went downstairs to get his laptop.

 _But how did Light know about the B connection...?_ he wondered as he walked. Who knew? Me, Mr. Wammy, Tenma, Fortner, Johan. Tenma has been avoiding Light. Johan wouldn't or couldn't tell him. Fortner then: she'd let it slip.

L reached his room and made a quick inquiry on his laptop. Yes, the mother was dead: four days already, three days after B's letter had arrived. Damn them all for not watching her closer. Damn her children for not being in touch with her. How could L have assumed she'd be out of play?

And the means of communication? B's letter to them was not the only letter. Light must have ordered him to write it along with the mother's name--on a separate paper--and absconded with that paper when the letter arrived at headquarters' inbox, which Light, last week, had been collecting, an obvious leak L should have stopped if his head weren't terminally screwed on wrong.

Terminally. It all slid into place.

 _So he's got me too. What's he waiting for? More gloating?_

L sighed and drooped, resting his head on his knees. Mindless. Nothing to think about anymore. Game, set, and match, and halfway to the locker room. He felt cold suddenly, so he got up, a little unsteady on his feet as if a slight fever were coming on, and went back upstairs to the roof. He sat in a corner, the sun baking his hands. _Will they burn before I die? Will they find me up here a few hours from now, boiled like a lobster?_

He wasn't sure how long he'd sat there when the door opened.

 _Or maybe they'll find me sooner?_

And Light came out.

 _And now the gloating commences._

Light sat beside him, rested an arm on the safety wall and gazed at the traffic below. "It's nice up here."

L found nothing to say.

"So how well did you know B?"

"Light-kun, talking about B at this stage would be pointless, isn't that so?"

Light studied him, his face impenetrable--or rather penetrable to the extent that he'd never worn that face in the days when he wasn't Kira.

 _He's better than me. He's won fair and square._

The thought was galling--despairing--yet almost a relief. Almost. Almost a comfort. For as long as he could remember, L had been alone, unable to match minds with anyone. But now someone matched him. _And soon he'll be alone. I wonder how he'll like it after five or ten years._

"It's sad, isn't it?" he said, "that soon we'll have to say goodbye."

Light's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, peering in at his brain.

With a blunt gesture, L reached out and scooped up the hand Light was resting on the wall, his right hand. Light tensed and pulled back a little but stopped when L didn't hold him hard. L gazed at that hand. Light let it lie limp in L's grasp, making no response as L rubbed his fingers.

 _This hand that has killed so many people..._

Then Light touched his thumb to L's knuckles. L hadn't noticed how he'd held it aloft till then.

"Ryuzaki..."

L looked up at him and was gratified by the puzzlement in Light's face, the little frown, the tilt of his head. _He's beautiful, isn't he? Really beautiful. No wonder the girls fall all over him._

The door clicked and both glanced at it sharply, dropping hands. Mr. Wammy came out, slightly rumpled and slumped. With a practiced rapidity, he took in L and Light.

After a moment, he said, "If Light-kun could excuse us for a moment, there's a matter I would--"

"No," L cut him off. "Not yet." Nothing would tear him away right now.

"I can go--" Light began.

"No. Not yet."

Light sat still, unsure how to mold such impoliteness into his mask.

Mr. Wammy gazed at the two them, almost pouting. He cleared his throat. "All right. In that case," he cleared his throat again, "Light-kun, I will ask you to bear witness... to my apology. Ryuzaki, I said some inexcusable things to you, which I hope you know I didn't mean. Not a word."

L looked down. This was beyond ridiculous.

"You've had a very trying day," said Light. "Anybody might speak too quickly having just heard about the death of someone I gather was once important to you."

"Thank you. Light-kun," said Mr. Wammy dryly. A second later, L heard his footsteps retreating and the door clicking open and shut.

Light sighed and leaned back against the wall. "You should accept his apology, Ryuzaki."

"Why? So I don't die with my sins on my head?" L regretted saying that as soon as the words were out, but at Light's reaction, he reassessed his regret.

Light stared at him closely... confusedly? _Is it possible he isn't planning to kill me? Or not now, at any rate? Is it possible he doesn't want to...? No. Not that. But possible... he didn't ask B for my name after all. He didn't ask B because he assumed that B's letter would be directed through a censor who might recognize my name--though not the mother's--and alert us if he saw it... as, indeed, Roger would have done._

 _And I am a raving idiot..._

 _...letting him sidetrack me while he waits for Misa to fulfill his instructions and kill Johan._

"You're right, Light-kun. I have been inexcusably rude to Watari. I will apologize." He pulled out his cell phone. As soon as it connected, he said, "I am very sorry for my rude behavior, and I think this would be a good time to take that drive." He ended the call. "Sometimes we debrief in the car."

Light smiled. "You didn't call Watari. Not even a little bit." He stood up.

"Oh? I must have hit the wrong number." L stood with him.

"Uh-huh." Light made for the door. "You should apologize to him though. That's just decent behavior." With a little laugh, he shut the door behind him.

L felt he could spread his arms and fly. He had no idea where Light was moving, but he was 74 percent certain that Light would be forced to say the same about him.

In the hallway, he almost literally ran into Fortner, who should already be headed for her taxi but instead stood there, looking... actually rather like the photos from her catatonic hospitalization following her attempt to kill her brother.

"L," she said, gazing somewhere past him. "My mother's dead. My mother's--"

"Yes, I know."

"He killed her in order to make her tell him--"

"Yes, I know. That's why I phoned. Now, please pull yourself together and go before it's too late."

* * *

 _She killed Mama._ Fortified by the thought, Nina rehearsed her speech as her taxi sped toward Misa's apartment.

 _The police know Light used B's death to find out Johan's name. They're on their way to arrest you now; they'll search for it everywhere. If they can't find it, they'll plant bugs and track your every move. The only way to throw them off is to get rid of it now, remove their evidence. If you don't dare to destroy it, I'll hide it for you._

It sounded incredibly stupid. Misa couldn't possibly buy that line. Even if it was L's plan, it wasn't one of his better ones. Nina couldn't make her heart stop swooping in her ears. She felt as if she stood once more in front of the three frogs. What if it really wasn't Light? Or what if a few inane words destroyed weeks of wheedling Misa's trust?

 _What if I can't be forgiven for stealing a damaged young girl's faith in me and using it to arrest her and the man she loves?_

 _What if I can't bear how she'll hate me?_

She could bear that, of course. A girl who could shoot her twin in the head could stomach the betrayal of a murderous stranger.

 _She killed Mama. She killed my mama for him._

What if Misa wasn't home? She should be, though, if she followed her work routine.

With a trembling that didn't quite reach the surface, Nina forced herself out of the taxi and propelled herself toward Misa's door. A hot sunset, a light on inside.

She knocked. Waited. Waited. No answer.

She knocked again. No answer.

On a whim, she tried the door and shuddered when she found it open. Unlocked doors petrified the senses like ghosts, like corpses. _I'm in a nightmare again. I'm always back there sooner or later._ At that thought, she almost a cracked a fatalistic smile and, a little stronger, went inside.

"Misa?"

Nothing. But the room smelled wrong. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew it. She took a step in.

"Mi--" She stopped short, realizing her mistake.

The blonde girl on the sofa wasn't Misa at all. It was Nina-- _don't be crazy_ \--it was _him_ , of course, in a blue skirt and gray sweater (despite the heat), knees crossed, trim and elegant, his face obscured by his wig.

She'd only half taken him in when she spotted the body, a tangled mass of legs and blood sprawled behind the kitchen counter.

Nina's knees fell out beneath her, and she clutched at a shelf, bringing herself face-to-face with a one-eyed pink rabbit. _She scrubbed it out, its eye, like he scrubbed her out._ She remembered... she remembered... and she couldn't stop remembering... first one family, then another. Blood on blood and body on body till she could pinpoint the crumpled dead like a bloodhound.

She hated Johan from the depths of her soul. If she had a gun right now...

She wouldn't shoot him again. _He got Misa first. He got to her before she could write his name._ A wild joy stabbed her.

She turned to him. "You'd better go before they find you."

He faced her, calm, but somehow less cold than he had been. "This is a fascinating read." She hadn't noticed the book that he held in his lap till he held it up before her. "It reminds me of the old days."

Nina made herself step toward him. "How did you find it?"

"She was writing in it when I came."

Her throat closed up. She looked for words but couldn't find them. She felt four years old again, filled up with things she had no power to explain.

Johan's eyes drifted away, up, toward the opposite window; it was shattered, jagged. "He's not like the old stories though. He's..." He paused abruptly. "No, I was going to say, 'jolly.'" He glanced at Nina. "But I don't like his eyes. I wish he'd go away."

"What happened to the window?"

"Oh that? Apparently, the other one got angry that she came too late, so she stormed out. It made a good show, the glass I mean. I didn't see the one who broke it; she was afraid to show herself to me."

Nina blinked, feeling blinded. "Shinigami." The word swam languidly up in her mind.

"Really?" said Johan dully. "He told me they came of Černobog, and I believed him. Do you have a pen?"

Nina stared at him, blank, for a moment. Then, as if someone else had control of her body--of her thoughts--she crossed to Misa's desk drawer and pulled out a pen: purple, with a Hello Kitty on it, its eyes Xed out. She handed it to Johan, an image playing through her head of Misa sitting at that desk and giggling as she gossiped about Light's kisses, which were apparently very " _suteki_."

Johan bent the book on his knee and started writing in the quick, even cursive he used when he wasn't smearing notes on walls.

"Brother..." slipped from Nina's lips.

He glanced up at her. "Don't worry; it will only take a minute." He went back to writing.

She watched him dumbly.

He set down the pen and tore the page from the book. "Envelope?"

"Envelope?" Nina repeated.

"Oh, thank you," said Johan, not to her. A desk drawer opened of its own volition, and an envelope flew into Johan's hand. He sat again, sealed in the paper, wrote down an address. "Stamp?" A stamp was in his hand.

He laid the letter on the coffee table and smiled at Nina. "Don't worry," he repeated. "I've taken care of everything. No one will ever believe it was you."

"Me...?" Nina murmured vaguely, her eye on the book. With a cat-pounce, she snatched it from the couch beside him. She could see the Shinigami now. His skeletal bulk ought to shock her, but she had other things to think about.

"Ah, now you and I can talk too," he prattled to her in Czech. "That's a relief. This guy's interesting in action, but he's not much of conversationalist, and it's dull not to have someone to chat with, you know?"

She didn't want to know what Johan had written. But she needed, needed, needed to know what Misa had. She opened the book, trying to calm her mind enough to make the Japanese compute. _If Tenma were here...._ But the words her eye fell on weren't Japanese.

There it was--his name--blazing out of a sea of kanji.

"She... she got you," stammered Nina. "But you're still alive."

Johan replied with a faint smile.

The demon--the Shinigami--perched improbably in the windowsill. "Thought he could protect himself by disguising his appearance. Didn't work, of course, since she'd already seen his picture. But I still like the way you think." He pointed a finger at Johan. "It kind of puts me out that you're going to die now."

"What do you mean 'now'?" Nina demanded. "I don't see him dying now."

"Well, okay. Soon, then. Give it here, and I'll read it to you."

Nina held out the book to his claw-hand. The Shinigami cleared his throat and said the name. It hurt Nina's ears. "'..., realizing the error of his ways, decides to end his life in penitence for opposing Kira. He writes a detailed suicide note in which he expresses his remorse and his acknowledgement of Kira's wisdom. He then kills himself by knife, gun, or hanging, whichever means is most readily available, in a building where...' Hm... I guess that's about where you shot her. The whole thing's real vague for the Kira I know. You must really have him got off his game."

Johan stood and reached for something.

Nina moved to stay his arm. "No, Brother, I won't let you--"

He hit her.

Fast and hard enough to send her staggering against Misa's desk. And it was her own damn fault she hadn't moved fast enough. She was a better physical fighter than he was; she should have taken him down. Those thoughts streaked through her mind as she stopped her fall and spun around, just in time to see him raise the gun to his head and fire.

* * *

L's phone rang. Matsuda. L glanced at his watch: eleven minutes past Nina's projected arrival at Misa's, within a minute of the time he'd instructed the police to move in.

 _But why call in to Matsuda first, not me?_

With trepidation, L clicked open his phone. "Yes?"

"Ryuzaki..." came Matsuda's flustered voice. "Ryuzaki..." L's heart fell like a stone deep into his chest.

"What's wrong, Matsuda-san?"

"He's... in his room. He--he's dead. In his room." _Light_ "Light-kun." _Johan got him._ "Kira got him. I-- I--" L could hear Matsuda choke back a sob. "I can't believe we accused him of being Kira. The chief..."

"Get ahold of yourself, Matsuda-san. I'll be right there." He slapped shut his phone and didn't move. Then, he hit his speed dial. "Watari?" He stopped short to close off the tremor in his voice.

"Yes, I'm on my way."

"I'll see you there."

L stood up and put his phone in his pocket. _It shouldn't have played out this way._

No. Now wasn't the time. First things first. Examine the evidence. Light wasn't really dead until his death was as concrete a fact as his corpse.

 _How dare he die without me._

He made his way toward Light's room, shouts echoing down the hall ahead.

How dare Johan kill him alone in his room with no one to hear his indignation or see his courage or his cowardice. _It's insulting. It's an insult to me._

He pushed past someone--Ide--into Light's room and was confronted by a tall, gray wall of bellowing. "... could believe we've wasted our time in doubting him, when Kira was always out to get him... Ryuzaki!"

L made himself focus on Yagami-san's face. His eyes were huge, bulbous, like a frog's, like a hippopotamus. L had difficulty looking away. "Where is he?"

Yagami-san's eyes got even bigger. He took a step past L, toward the door. The stopped and did a weird spin back as if he wanted to flee but was held in place by a magnetic field. His eyes glanced frightened across the room.

L, frightened too, followed them. Not much to see: a graceful young body slumped in death, his hair obscuring his eyes--that was a good thing. Just then, EMTs streaked past them and swooped like vultures on the body.

"It's too late!" Yagami-san shrieked at them, a sort of noise L had no idea he could make.

Dazed, L waylaid one of the EMTs.

"Please stand back," the man said.

 _It's too late. Didn't you hear him?_ "Yagami-san has a heart condition. You'd better check on him too."

Yagami-san had folded himself against the wall, collapsing around his knees in a posture that reminded L of himself. He was gasping like he'd run a decathlon.

And that was all there was to say. L backed out of the room, bumping in to Mr. Wammy. _Stop hovering, Mr. Wammy._

Aizawa was shouting and Matsuda sobbing, so loud L scarcely heard his phone ring.

"Yes?" He walked a little way down the hall.

"We're at Amane's apartment now," said the officer on duty. "Amane's been shot dead, and a man Fortner-san identifies as Johan has shot himself, according to her report. He's dead too."

"And Fortner-san?"

"She's a bit stunned and slightly bruised; otherwise, she seems all right."

"I'll be right there. Watari--" L turned and practically bumped into him. "Get the car."

 _So it wasn't Johan after all._

* * *

They drove in silence, L so still he might almost have been sleeping. _I hate times like this,_ thought Quil.

He turned a corner.

 _Oh, come on, Quil, who are you kidding? You thrive on it, or you wouldn't have chosen this line of work. Yet how many people end up doing things they hate or hating what they do? Like L..._ He didn't know how to finish the thought.

The only thing he was fairly sure of was that L himself didn't understand what had happened yet... what had happened to himself, that is, not the Kira case. That he probably understood.

 _And it isn't going to help him._

 _And what if Light wasn't Kira after all? And what the hell if he was? He still didn't deserve this._

At Misa's apartment, L ambled in past the police, ignoring their stares as he flashed his ID. _He shouldn't have come in person._ But he had.

Nina sat on the floor in a corner, knees drawn up, not unlike Light's father. Quil wanted to say something to comfort her yet couldn't. The bodies of Misa and Johan sprawled, untouched. Quil tried not to look. He'd seen his share of dead bodies; he didn't want these. Not little Misa. _I should get Nina out of here. I should get Kenzo. Where is he?_

L went straight to the sofa and picked up the notebook. His eyes flashed toward the window. "There's another one." He nodded at the window and handed the Death Note to Quil.

 _Another one what? Oh._ At the sight of the Shinigami, Quil's heart flip-flopped almost as wildly as it had when he'd first seen Rem. But this one was even worse.

"Hey," it said. "This place is starting to look like rush hour, and you mean to tell me not one person has an apple?"

There was something in that statement that reminded Quil of L.

Just then, he heard English behind him. He turned to see Nina staring at the Shinigami. She intoned:

"The other day upon the stair  
I met a man who wasn't there.  
He wasn't there again today.  
I wish, I wish he'd go away."

"Hm? That's a little rude," said the Shinigami.

Quil crouched by Nina on old, stiff knees. "I wish he would too. But let's us go instead."

Then, L was standing over him. With a fluid gesture, he took back the Death Note and slipped an envelope into Quil's hand instead. It was torn roughly open. Quil pulled out a letter. In German, it read:

 _"I, Johan, have labored to oppose the justice of Kira. I killed those he'd call innocent, hoping to drown his utopia in blood. I see now I was wrong. I, whose mission has been to summon the darkness, was a fool to resist Kira. For he is ultimate champion of darkness, my master, my God, he who robs mankind of will and reduces the survivors to mere vegetable subservience, he who waters these cabbages in a bloodletting vaster than I could conceive. I bow to him and submit to his wisdom and remove myself now from this world, for it has no more need of me. It has him:"_

Below was written in kanji, _"Yagami Light."_

No sooner had he finished reading than L's hand descended and snatched the letter from him. "Keys."

"What?" Quil blinked at him.

L held out his hand. "The keys to the car."

Numbly, Quil fished them out and handed them over. L said a couple of words to the police and went out, Death Note and suicide note in hand. Through the window, Quil watched him drive away, narrowly missing a parked car as he backed up, though he backed slowly. _He's barely driven since he got his license._

After a moment, it struck Quil he ought to know where L was headed. He phoned.

L picked up on the second ring and said, "I'm going back to headquarters." Then, he clicked off.

Quil turned back to Nina, still sitting by the wall, eyes dull on Johan. "Nina?" No response. "Let me go with you to the police station so you can make your statement."

"No," said Nina, flashing to life. "I don't want to leave him. Not yet."

Quil glanced at the blood pooling under the blonde wig and wanted nothing more than to leave his room. "All right. I'll sit with you a while."

* * *

Quil waited for Kenzo in the police station's lobby, hoping that when the time came, he'd know what to say. Then, Kenzo came through the door and--

He'd been clipped on the phone, but that was shock, and Quil had fully prepared himself for the anguish--

\--that he didn't see on the sallow face that glanced his way but didn't hold his eyes.

 _He's been through this before. He's been through worse than this. Maybe it's a relief in the end, having Johan gone at last._

Kenzo sat next to him. "How's Nina?"

"About as you'd expect. She's making her statement now."

They sat in silence.

"I think I woke you up," said Quil at length.

"Why?"

"You sounded sleepy on the phone."

Kenzo stared somewhere beyond his knees. "No, I wasn't sleeping."

It came over Quil like a gust of wind: _He's hiding something._ Just as forcefully came the realization that Quil didn't want to know what. Let L uncover everything if he could. _I'm too old to know some things._

They sat a while longer. Then, Nina came out, her face a china doll's, her coat thrown demurely over her arm. Kenzo crossed to her, but she started when she saw him. "You two don't need to wait for me. I still have some paperwork to do."

Kenzo stood there forlorn, making no move to approach her. Nina stood about five feet away, a mirror of his motionlessness. Neither quite looked at the other. In times of stress, Quil often took shelter in the absurd, and so he had to fight down a laugh at them, standing there, at the... purity of their unwillingness to impinge on one another. Purity? Or puritanism?

"I'll see you later," said Nina, vaguely encompassing both Kenzo and Quil, and went with the policeman who'd come to collect her.

When she'd gone, Kenzo said, "I'd like to see his body."

* * *

Light's room was peaceful as a shrine compared to Misa's apartment. The body gone, L closed the door and set about his investigation.

Or pretended to. He had trouble focusing. _It really is like a shrine, a shrine to the god who... the false god, who.... He deserved better than this._

It disappointed him that Light had apparently succumbed without a struggle. _He should have done better._

Then he spotted the napkin under the bed and, further underneath, a pencil. A very hard pencil that had done little more than gouge the napkin like a fingernail. Ironic, wasn't it, that at the end Kira hadn't had anything to write with.

As for what he'd tried to write, for a second L thought it was katakana. The next second, he realized it was romaji, scratching out a single word:

Fortner.

L sunk back against the end of bed, the tension melting from his body. He laid the napkin on his knee.

 _So he didn't die without a struggle. With his last strength, he told us he knew. He knew before I did and with fewer clues._ That ought to annoy L, but it didn't.

He stared at the napkin till it blurred before him and he felt sleep creeping close by.

Then, like a kaleidoscope shifting, his thoughts reshaped. There'd been no need for Light to die. Despite Misa's death and Johan's, the plan had functioned perfectly. They'd obtained the Death Note, and from that point, it was merely a question of comparing handwriting, perhaps even of fingerprinting.

Light should be on his way to trial. _He should still be with us. Everything he knew should be... should be..._

 _He should still be here. His murder--_

\--was unforgivable.

* * *

Quil watched Kenzo resolutely approach body bag, pause beside it, then with gloved hands, unzip it fast. Quil himself looked away. He hated the sight of heads blown apart. Instead he studied the white wall tiles with gray grout and listened to Kenzo's breathing quicken.

 _B is dead,_ he thought randomly. _Not twenty-four hours dead, and I've already forgotten._

A weird noise choked him out of his reverie. Kenzo backed away from the corpse and sank into a chair... sobbing? No. Laughing. His whole body shook with it.

"Well... Well, there he's gone and wrecked all my work." He quieted for a moment, then doubled over in a renewed fit of laughter.

Quil smiled, only because laughter is contagious, and watched the laughing meld with sobbing and Kenzo wipe at his eyes with the fingers that had stitched together Johan's brain twice--but never again. After a minute or so, Quil sealed the body bag back up, pretending to himself he didn't smell the blood.

Kenzo was quiet now. "We played the wrong game, pitting Kira against Johan. It was asking for trouble; it..."

Quil sighed, far too tired for that conversation. "We can only do our best, and that will have to suffice," he said because on occasion he channeled Gandalf.

"If this is my best...." Kenzo trailed off.

 _Our best._ The words triggered a realization. "I'm sorry: I need to get back to headquarters."

Quil made a move to go, but Kenzo laid a hand on his shoulder. "Qu-- Watari, it's my fault," he said, his big eyes imploring.

 _No, it isn't?_ But this was no time for platitudes. "Don't tell me, Kenzo. It's best if I don't know."

* * *

Quil found L alone in the control room, printing and typing.

 _I should go,_ he told himself, having only just arrived. _He can't use me right now._ But he glanced over L's shoulder anyway to see what he was working on. The report came from the 1990s...

"Why are you looking up Nina's trial?"

L stopped typing and stared at the computer. "Guess."

Quil sank into a chair, automatically glancing around the room to make sure no one would witness his un-Watari-like collapse. "You've got to be kidding me."

L rested his hands on his knees. "Light-kun killed Johan, so Fortner killed Light-kun."

Quil felt nauseated. "And we can ascertain it wasn't Johan because...?"

"Because he left a space for her to fill in Light-kun's name."

"He left a gap to make sure the Death Note would read the name as a separate entry."

"That's why _Fortner_ left it."

 _Oh, Kenzo._ His mind balked at the thought of Nina making an enemy of L... at the thought of little Nina killing Light. "And why would Johan do that when given his golden chance to assassinate Kira himself?" He sat forward. "He did know Kira's identity, didn't he?"

"Yes. As long as he knew about Misa, it was an easy guess."

"Then why?"

"He wanted to turn his sister into a murderer; that's obvious, isn't it? He'd been trying to do that since he was eleven. And being able to do that and strike down Kira in one blow, what could be more poetic?"

"Evidence?" Quil clung on to an even voice.

L brandished a sheaf of papers.

"You can't prove anything based on the fact she once set off to kill Johan."

L clapped the papers down and went back to his typing.

* * *

Kenzo phoned Nina that evening, when he was pretty sure the police were done questioning her for the day. He got her voicemail, left a message, fretted. Was she just not ready to talk? Had something happened to her? What would Johan's death do to her? When he called her again and got voicemail, he decided to go to her hotel.

No answer to his knock.

"Nina, it's Tenma. Are you there?"

In the silence, he could see her as the child he'd first met: wide, unblinking eyes, staring straight through everyone around her, her real self locked up somewhere else.

"Nina, this is worrying me, so if you're there, please let me in."

A moment later, he heard a step and the door swung open. He sighed in relief; she didn't look that bad--tired, wan, still dressed in the same clothes, her sleeve specked with blood he hadn't noticed before.

She closed the door behind them and faced him like a duty. "I'm sorry, Tenma. I didn't mean to freak you out. I just... can't, right now."

He nodded. "I understand; I'll go. I--" was selfish to be here, selfish to unburden himself to her, but-- "There's something I have to tell you. I was talking to Quil, and he was worried that Kira was going to move against L, so I--"

"No!"

The violent sound shocked him into silence. She pressed her hands to her ears, wide eyes starting to resemble that child's eyes.

"Nina?"

Trembling she dropped her hands. "Don't tell me, Tenma."

"But I--"

"Don't!" She took a deep breath. "Just don't. I can't. I can't solve your problems."

"I'm not asking--"

She threw up her hands. "I know you mean well, but I can't _deal_ with you. You can't help me. I... have to go my own way." She opened the door, not looking at him.

When he didn't move, she glared at him as if he were a guilty thing. So he made for the door.

"If you need me..."

"Yes, I know," she said and shut the door in his face.

* * *

Quil had errands to run, every one of them unpleasant. Over sixty-odd hours, he put in his time as the Face of L, debriefing ICPO and the Japanese police. He kept the task force out of L's hair, visited the Yagamis: Soichiro was in the hospital on a heart monitor; his wife was tear-puffed and silent, while Sayu squeaked out imprecations at a nails-on-chalkboard pitch.

And Quil kept thinking, _They loved him. They may not have really known him, but they loved him. In a way, we all did. Me least, probably. I didn't doubt that he was Kira, but he was sharp and... collected, and L needed somebody like that._ And Quil missed him.

L he left alone. Aside a few phone calls to coordinate the investigation, he left him on his own entirely because everything screamed at him to do so: the closed door, the abandoned task force, the lack of dessert requests. He left him alone to give him the space for a grief he had no tools for sharing.

But by the third day, Quil decided he had to check in. He used his master codes to get into the control room.

L sat where Quil had left him, still typing and clicking, a comparatively small scattering of ice-cream cartons and candy wrappers tossed to his left. _Same direction as his tennis serve._ Paper files were piled high. He made no acknowledgment of Quil's presence.

Quil clenched candy bars he'd brought and came forward. He took a seat beside L, who still took no notice of him.

He looked like a caricature of himself: paler, more disheveled, eyes buggier, baggier. He wore what Quil called his "processing frown," that intent expression that put Quil in mind of a CPU running at 100 percent.

Quil held out a candy bar. "Do you fancy lunch?"

L stopped typing, but only to read his computer screen, apparently showing a piece of Nina's dissertation.

"Ryuzaki."

L clicked back to his word processor and resumed typing.

Quil cleared his throat. "Ryuzaki..." How to say this? "The last thing I wanted was for you to go through this. I mean I--" Here, L picked out a paper file and started reading. "It cuts me to see you dealing with--" _dealing with?_ He stopped, at a loss.

L turned the page and went on reading.

"Ryuzaki."

Nothing.

"L." Quil reached out and pressed his arm.

L jumped; his chair rattled; Quil threw a hand on it to steady it. L's papers swooshed from their file to the floor. Breathing hard, L stared at him with those absolute, round eyes.

Quil stooped and picked up the fallen papers: Misa's interrogation. He held them out to L, who put them in their file and set it down. Quil waited for him to speak, but still he said nothing.

Quil decided to cut to the matter at hand. "Look, hounding Nina--"

"I will hound her," said L in his dangerous, quiet voice. "'Round the Cape and round the Horn.'"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I thought you'd appreciate a good _Star Trek_ quote."

Quil bestowed a smile on that, though he didn't feel like smiling. "Don't be Khan, and don't be Ahab. Come now, you're so much more intelligent than that."

"Yes, I am very intelligent," said L. "And I will nail her for this."


	5. Epilogue: Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> L vs. Nina

But justice, L found, bows to politics even in court. Kira's worshippers mourned him--some of them even after Johan's suicide note--but the powers-that-be had all wanted him dead, so why should they care who killed him?

Nothing L did convinced them to convict her of murder. Because the idea of condemning someone for writing a name in a notebook was too outlandish..., because Light's name wasn't enough kanji to base a handwriting analysis on... because her handwriting was close to her brother's anyway and so what if her fingerprints were everywhere; she'd admitted to handling everything. And on and on and on.

He got her disbarred. But that slap on the wrist was a mockery of justice.

L went to her house the evening she was acquitted, her real house, where she hid from the press. Quilted in the December mist, he rang the bell and wrapped his coat around him.

After peering at him through the peephole, she opened the door, looking wilted in faded jeans and a sweater. "Why am I not surprised?" she said in German.

He pushed in past her, glad of the warmth of her living room. Outside the breeze shivered with specks of ice. "Unusual, isn't it, to celebrate such a victory alone." He spoke in English because he didn't feel like doing her the courtesy of speaking her language.

"That's my business," she answered in English.

He wended his way toward her crackling fireplace. "Or perhaps you don't feel celebratory because you know you were acquitted of a crime of which you're guilty."

She crossed her arms. "To what do I owe the pleasure, L?"

"I came to warn you."

"Warn me?"

"Don't imagine you're free. Every move you make--"

"--you'll be watching me?"

L gave her an unamused glare. "So, given your history of breaking the law, I advise you to step carefully."

She huffed and shook her head. "That threat would be much more effective without it made."

He narrowed his eyes unkindly at her poor English locution.

"I mean, this posturing," she went on, "it's childish."

L stuck his hands in pockets and let the fire warm his back. "I am childish. And I hate to lose, so I don't make a practice of it."

"That's what this is about, isn't it? You wanted to overwit Light--" His name on her lips--in English--infuriated him.

"Outwit," he said softly.

"--but Johan was the one who defeated him."

L made for the door. "It wasn't Johan who killed him."

"You're not the only one who got hurt, you know." She followed him. "I lost my twin. You think I don't know what it's like to have that hole ripped in you. Wait." Her voice suddenly was consolatory. "I'm sorry I said it was ego. I know how hard it is to care for someone you know is dangerous and you have to be against."

L stopped, his hand on the doorknob. "Please spare me the pop psychology."

"Fine, but there's no reason for things to stay like this between us. Wait--" she repeated as L open the door. She put her hand on his hand to stay him.

And some taut spring in him exploded. He threw his weight against the door and kicked her. She flew back into her coffee table, wood screeching on the wooden floor. She pulled herself up, rubbing her hip where she'd hit it, then brushed herself off and walked toward him again. "If that's how you want it, let's finish it; I've had enough. You've hounded me for months; you've testified against me. I lost my career to you, my _career_ I dreamed of all my life!" Her blue eyes burned into him.

She was too close again, so he thrust her back. But she dodged, and pinned an arm behind him. He twisted; his shoulder wrenched. He got a foot behind her, tripped her, and they were both on the floor. For a moment, he held her down, then his head smacked the floorboards. Then, he had a hand around her wrist, so small that, as he gripped it, his thumb touched his knuckles, and he wanted to squeeze till he heard her bones crack.

She shifted her weight--a knee in his gut; a fire poker clattered. She slipped free of his grip (that hadn't been a good move on his part, he thought as his spine smacked the corner an armchair). A white spasm shot down his legs.

And suddenly it all seemed silly.

His head, his back, his shoulder throbbed. He clambered away into the chair and pulled up his feet and pressed himself into its corner, feeling about three years old.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her pick herself up, set the poker upright. A bruise marked her forehead, though he had no recollection of how she got it. She stood by the fire, massaging her wrist.

After a minute or so, she said, "I know what you want to say." She came over to his chair and leaned over him. "It isn't very hard to read others' thoughts, is it? Not for us."

_'Us'? She's likening herself to me?_

"You want to say it doesn't matter if I deceive the whole world; you'll always know the real me, the guilty me, and for every mistake I make in the rest of my life, my punishment will go down in your ledger against the debt that the rest of my life won't begin to--"

A knock came at the door.

"Fuck," she muttered and straightened up the coffee table.

At the door, unsurprisingly, stood Tenma and, only slightly more surprisingly, Mr. Wammy, who'd come to Germany with L. Of course, he'd gravitate to Tenma. He always did.

"What's all this, then?" said Mr. Wammy, zeroing in on Fortner's bruised head. He actually _said_ that.

"It's nothing," said Fortner. "We--" She glanced at L, who refused to glance back except sideways. "We had a moment."

"Let me look," said Tenma and took her over by a lamp. As he inspected her forehead, he and Fortner had a comical conversation. Why hadn't she called him? He'd been trying to see her, and so had Dieter, and Dr. Reichwein, etc., etc. And she hadn't wanted to burden them ( _because she knows she's guilty and she doesn't deserve their compassion_ ), and she needed to work through this by herself.

Mr. Wammy came to stand beside L. "You in one piece?"

L scrunched deeper into the chair. "Did you bring any chocolates?"

Mr. Wammy pulled a couple out of a pocket. L popped both of them in his mouth and felt marginally refreshed. Mr. Wammy watched him a moment. "You shouldn't go around beating up young women."

"She'th a bwack belt," said L around the chocolates.

"Well, that's hardly an excuse, is it?" said Mr. Wammy. "It just means she'll beat you up as well." After about fifteen seconds, he smiled. "Damnation, I shouldn't find this funny."

Fortner's voice intruded in German: "--is not your responsibility."

"But it is!" Tenma looked across the room to L and Mr. Wammy, his face overwrought.

L perked up his ears, sensing a solid 43 percent chance that this information would be more than irrational self-incrimination.

Tenma stood up straight. "I told Johan to kill Kira."

"Tenma!" cried Fortner with a frightened glance at L.

"Yes," said Tenma stiffly. "You can consider that my confession. He--Johan told me he was close to being able to kill Kira. I don't know how he planned to do it. But I called him, and I told him Kira was closing in on him, and he'd better act. And I never doubted, ever, how Johan would interpret that."

L glanced at Mr. Wammy, who was gazing at the fire.

Without thinking, L said, "How Johan planned it is easy. He knew from his contacts in the police that Misa was accused of killing for Kira, and since she was obsessed with Light, that meant Kira was probably Light. But once Light went into hiding, Johan had to attack him through Misa. Since Misa plainly had a means of killing by remote, Johan planned to threaten her into revealing that means--probably by threatening Light's life--and then wresting that means from her to use against its master. He bided his time because his preference was to accomplish the murder with his sister's support, and she was waiting on my orders to make her own move on Misa. I had concluded that Johan moved in on Misa after he got word of B's death. But it appears I overestimated his comprehension of B's relevance and that he moved at Dr. Tenma's instigation. There his plan backfired because Light had directed Misa to kill Johan first. He caught her in the act, shot her, and determined her the nature of her weapon--unless, of course, Ms. Fortner had already informed him of that part."

"You think I'm insane?" exclaimed Fortner.

"No. I would never acquit you on such a plea." But Tenma... Tenma he'd never suspected. And he should have. It was obvious.

He glanced again at Mr. Wammy. "You knew."

Mr. Wammy exchanged a long look with Tenma. "I... pretty well guessed."

"Call the police," said Tenma to L. "I should have confessed a long time ago. Nina--"

"It didn't matter," she said quickly. "The first thing they did was conclude I hadn't had time to contact Johan. All I had was my mobile, and I hadn't used it. So how he got there had no bearing on my case. You know that, Tenma. You followed the proceedings. And I know that if you had believed you could help me, you would have confessed in a moment."

Tenma sank into a chair. "No. I'm just a coward."

Their conversation was turning toward the comical again, and L was in no mood to be amused. He got up, buttoned up the collar of his coat, and walked into the wintry street.

* * *

Kenzo watched L go. He could feel the water close over his head. And he deserved it: he'd tied the stones around his feet and plunged. He'd become everything he most despised.

Suddenly Quil was close to him. Kenzo shrank away, ashamed.

"I'll placate him," said Quil.

"Please don't."

Quil sighed and turned to follow L.

"No, Quil, hear me out." He held his friend with fiery eyes. "I once shot a man in cold blood. I shot him twice to make sure he was good and dead. And you know what the courts made me pay for that? Nothing. The press praised my so-called 'heroism' and congratulated me for my selflessness in joining Doctor's without Borders. And, then, I murdered Yagami Li--"

"I have to go," Quil broke in, "before he goes off God knows where." He was fiddling with his mobile, which had apparently gone dead.

"Sorry," murmured Kenzo, ashamed of his disregard for Quil's duty to L.

Quil's hand, a little chilly, brushed back Kenzo's bangs; then, he kissed his forehead. "We'll solve it," he said and strode out, planting his hat on his head.

In the strange, sudden silence, the fire cracked. Kenzo turned, half-expecting to find Nina vanished, but there she was, elbows on her knees, in a chair by the fire. It struck him then he'd been speaking to Quil in Japanese. He had no idea how much she'd caught.

"Tenma." She stared into the fire. "Don't turn yourself in. I know your conscience wants to, but it isn't worth it."

He went to the fireplace and held his hands over the hearth. "That's what my cowardice has been telling me for months now."

"Well, your cowardice is right."

In the tongues of fire, Tenma could almost reconstruct the warm auburn of that rare young man he'd told Johan to kill. "I wish he hadn't been Kira. He--he was Kira, wasn't he?"

Nina leaned back in her chair. "Yes, of course, he was Kira."

"I should have told you."

"How could you? I'd barely talk to you." She laughed. "I didn't want to tarnish you. I did do it, you know. I'm not saying it was right. If I could erase that lapse, that fury, I would. And if I could apologize on bended knee without condemning myself to life in prison, I'd do it. Some days I long for nothing else. But I still can't convince myself my guilt is worth throwing my life away. Maybe it is. Maybe I'm just too much a coward myself."

Kenzo hated that he wasn't more surprised. He watched his hands, shadow dance before the flames. "I do believe the world is better without him."

"Well, so do I, and that's exactly what both of us thought when we both set off across Germany with every intent of murdering Johan. Tenma, we really are very much alike, quite a pair of self-righteous vigilantes."

"Maybe not so unlike Kira."

"Maybe not." She held out her hand to him, and he took it, for it seemed they occupied the same space, undivided.

* * *

Quil got out the door just in time to catch sight of L turning a corner. He hastened after him, cursing old, creaking knees, and found he'd gone an alley, narrow, dark. A few feet down, he sat against a fence, his beige coat glowing like honey in the street lamps.

Stiffly, Quil got down on the concrete and sat beside him, tucking his hands in coat pockets in the chill. "I'm sorry," he said lamely.

"I don't think so."

Quil shivered despite his coat and searched for an honest reply. "Well. If you're asking would I do the same thing again, yes, I expect so because sending him to prison won't do anyone any good. But I am sincerely sorry we ended up... divided in this. I'm sorry it led me to lie to you, well, lie by omission. That--truly--is something I never wanted."

"It was foolish of me to trust you, Mr. Wammy."

Quil made himself breathe past the knot in his throat.

"My conduct throughout this case has been foolish."

"Only sometimes." Quil paused. "Don't send Kenzo to prison. _Onegai_." _As a favor... as a kindness, bend this once._

"Heaven forefend I should do anything to 'Kenzo.'"

Quil raised an eyebrow. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were jealous." The words slipped out unthinkingly as some sort of crass attempt at lightening the mood. Quil at once regretted them.

L went still, that palpable stillness one could never mistake for his usual motionless, that drawing in of everything like a possum playing dead. His face froze in a slight, hard frown.

"And I'm sure you know that would be silly," said Quil because he couldn't undo his words. "After all, I'm not sitting in this icebox with him, am I?"

L took a slow breath. "It's nice for you you have him."

 _While you've lost your only friend._ Quil felt viscerally ashamed.

"But they make you lose your perspective, those people," L went on. "Do you remember when we first met Tenma, I said he'd manipulated you. The man is a master manipulator. He does it like breathing; he does it while breathing, every moment of his life."

"By which you mean, he's a good man, so people want to help him."

L made a sound that might have been a laugh. "He's a murderer by proxy, like Kira, but his Misa was named Johan."

"Are you going to turn him in?"

L chafed one thumb against the other. "No. But this isn't over."

Over or not, Quil felt like Sisyphus told to let go of his stone. "Thank you."

"I'm always glad to help Kenzo."

"No. For you: thanks for you," said Quil. "I'm so relieved to see you acting like yourself again."

L gave him a rueful glance, then murmured something like that sounded like, "hot air."

"What about the air?"

"It's not fair," L repeated. "He--Light--never had a fair chance, with everyone closing him in on all sides. It took Johan and Fortner and Tenma together to bring him down. And you. You helped them."

"And you?"

L shuddered, maybe partly from the cold. His face cracked in a way Quil hadn't seen since he was eight or nine years old. He drew a ragged breath and covered his eyes with his hand. "You know what B would say: 'You and I both are fools now.' God, how he'd love this."

Quil knew what he meant, so made only a brief attempt to redact it into reasonable thoughts:

\--that L hadn't vanquished Kira; they'd never got their final match.  
\--that he'd wanted to protect Light.  
\--that he'd let emotion cloud his reason.  
\--that he'd let the man he loved be killed.

Quil listened to him sniff sporadically.

At length, he said, "When you were about nine, you got a bad flu. Roger and I tried everything to get you off to sleep, but every time we left the room, we heard you coughing and snuffling and tossing and turning. Then, Priscilla phoned, just to say 'hi,' you know, and I told her you were ill and she said, 'I'll come round.' And, by God, if she didn't sing you to sleep. She said it used to work with Penny when she was a girl. How I wished I had her way about me, and at this moment, I wish you were little again, and I could say, 'Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee all through the night. Guardians angels God will send thee all through the night.'"

L had uncovered one eye and was staring at him.

Quil broke off, embarrassed.

L wiped his nose. "He's gone, Mr. Wammy."

 _There are no guardian angels for that._ "I know."

L stared somewhere beyond his feet. After a time, he added, "I didn't even see him go."

"I wish--no, I never use that word anymore."

"'Coagulate?'" L obliged him dully.

"'W.I.S.H.,'" Quil finished up the _Buffy_ quote. "But if you ever want to talk...." He stopped and considered. "I love you. You know that, don't you?"

L went on staring, hands crunched between his knees like little raccoon paws.

"Don't you?"

"Yeah." He stood up, looking vacant. Sticking his hands in pockets, he started back up the alley.

"Oi," said Mr. Wammy. "Help an old man up, would you?"

L turned around and held out a hand. Quil gripped it--it was a little wet--and let L's strong, young arm haul him up. He adjusted his hat.

"Right. There's for your pains." He handed L a chocolate, which L ate, Quil suspected, by force of habit. "Now, when we get back to the hotel, I intend to blast the furnace. No, actually, I'm going to ring that nice landlady and see if she has any vacant cabins. We need a fireplace--and a little space from the rest of the world. And either Dickens or Monty Python, I'm not sure."

 _That's entirely too happy,_ he admonished himself. _This isn't a happy moment, not for him._

" _Great Expectations,_ " said L. "To remind us."

Quil stared at him a moment. It seemed a very un-L-like thing to say, a good thing, a wise thing. As the walked down the street, Quil pulled a quote from his childhood: "You remember Pip watching Herbert succeed in business, and it always stuck with me, he said, 'I often wondered how I conceived the old idea of his inaptitude, until I one day realized--'"

"'--until I was one day enlightened by the reflection...'"

"Much obliged. Paid by the word, eh? 'Enlightened by the reflection that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all...'" He broke off, waiting.

"'--but had been in me,'" L finished dutifully.

"And may the same reflection come to us and all of us."


End file.
